Suzanne Smalley reports: The Federal Trade Commission announced its second settlement with a location data broker in as many weeks Thursday, signaling the agency is more aggressively policing the sector for peddling individuals’ most sensitive data to the highest bidder, often without informed consent. The agency alleges that data aggregator InMarket Media improperly collected, used…
How a 27-year-old busted the myth of Bitcoin’s anonymity
Andy Greenberg writes: Just over a decade ago, Bitcoin appeared to many of its adherents to be the crypto-anarchist holy grail: truly private digital cash for the Internet. Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s mysterious and unidentifiable inventor, had stated in an email introducing Bitcoin that “participants can be anonymous.” And the Silk Road dark-web drug market seemed like…
Novant Health Settles $6.6 Million Pixel Privacy Breach Lawsuit
Steve Alder writes: Novant Health has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that stemmed from its use of tracking pixels on its MyChart patient portal. The pixel code on the patient portal collected the personally identifiable information of users with the goals of “improving access to care through virtual visits and to provide increased…
Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies
A new study looks at who is sending information about your online activity to Facebook By: Jon Keegan This article was copublished with Consumer Reports, an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency and fairness in the marketplace. Learn more here. By now most internet users know their online…