Color me stunned. As an Optimum Online subscriber, I’m supposed to get free online access to Newsday, one of the largest newspapers in New York. So I went to sign up on Newsday’s site. And that’s when my eyes popped out of my head. Not only does Newsday’s sign-up form ask you for your Optimum ID…
Category: Business
Facebook’s Swedish data centre will be subject to Snoop Law
Anna Leach reports: The icy location is a big advantage for the new data centre that Facebook is planning in the northern Swedish town of Lulea. But while the frigid Arctic winds will fan the servers, it’s the legal climate that could get hot. A controversial Swedish internet surveillance law passed in 2008 allows the…
Why Johnny Can’t Opt Out: A Usability Evaluation of Tools to Limit Online Behavioral Advertising
A new report from the very excellent Carnegie Mellon University CyLab, by Pedro G. Leon, Blase Ur, Rebecca Balebako, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Richard Shay, and Yang Wang: Why Johnny Can’t Opt Out: A Usability Evaluation of Tools to Limit Online Behavioral Advertising. Abstract We present results of a 45-participant laboratory study investigating the usability of…
Class Says Android Weather App Tracks Individual Location for Sale
June Williams reports: Unhappy customers say in a federal class action that an AccuWeather application that comes installed on EVO smartphones tracks users’ location “to within a few feet,” and transmits the unencrypted data over the Internet so it can be used to “display behaviorally targeted advertising to those users” – and there’s no way…