Ashby Jones writes: Here’s a question: Is it kosher for a law enforcement agency to, pursuant to a lawfully granted search warrant, search your Gmail account without telling you? According to an opinion handed down earlier this year and currently making the rounds on legal blogs (here and here), the answer is yes. The opinion,…
Job seekers’ private data endangered by faulty system
Data protection deficiencies at the Federal Employment Agency (BA) are far more serious than previously reported, daily Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Friday. The agency has massive problems with a computer system in use across the nation, according to letters sent to the paper by BA staff councils, who called the situation dangerous to privacy laws,…
Facebook calls for feedback on proposed privacy changes
Facebook’s privacy policy will be changing — partly in response to changes requested by the Canadian government — and Facebook is seeking responses to the proposed changes. Yesterday, Vice president of communications and public policy Elliot Schrage, invited users to comment about the proposed changes. Members have until November 5 to submit comments. Our primary…
Sanford Wallace fined $711 million for Facebook spam
Posted on Facebook’s blog yesterday: Today, a San Jose, Calif. court awarded Facebook $711 million in damages against Sanford Wallace, one of the spammers who accessed people’s accounts without their permission and sent phony Wall posts and messages. While we don’t expect to receive the vast majority of the award, we hope that this will…