Ryan Singel reports: An in-the-closet lesbian mother is suing Netflix for privacy invasion, alleging the movie rental company made it possible for her to be outed when it disclosed insufficiently anonymous information about nearly half-a-million customers as part of its $1 million contest to improve its recommendation system. The suit known as Doe v. Netflix…
Privacy Groups Bring Facebook Complaints to FTC
Robert McMillan reports: Ten privacy and consumer groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), filed a complaint Thursday with the U.S.Federal Trade Commission, saying that Facebook’s newly revamped privacy settings are deceptive and unfair. Facebook unveiled the new privacy settings last week, saying that they were giving users more granular control over their settings,…
Facebook sues social network spammers
John Leyden reports: Facebook has launched lawsuits against a trio of alleged high profile hijackers and spammers. A lawsuit filed in an unspecified federal court charges Jeremi Fisher, Philip Porembski, and Ryan Shimeall of “phishing Facebook users and sending spam from their accounts”, the social networking website said in a statement. Also named as defendants…
MO: Physical trainer convicted of secretly videotaping teens
A former physical trainer at St. John’s Hospital was convicted a of sexually exploiting children by secretly videotaping minor females at the hospital’s training facility. Scott Johnson, 30, of Springfield, Mo., was found guilty of eight counts of the sexual exploitation of a child. Johnson was taken into federal custody to await sentencing. Johnson was…