Tag Archives: privacy

Correction, May 4, 2017: It’s free for schools to upgrade from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro. May 2, Microsoft held an event to launch a new education-focused version of its Windows 10 operating system that can run on ultracheap laptops. Windows 10 S is a locked-down version of Windows 10 Pro: Microsoft made …

Did Uber break the law by collecting information on users’ iPhones to identify the devices even after people had deleted the Uber app? That’s what a consumer advocacy group asked the US Federal Trade Commission to find out in a complaint sent Thursday (PDF). Consumer Watchdog told the FTC in its complaint that this kind of tracking violates federal privacy …

Requests for Facebook user information from law enforcement agencies around the world increased by 9 percent in the last half of 2016, the company reported Thursday. The figure came as part of Facebook’s global government requests report, which it puts out twice a year. In total, law enforcement asked for user information 64,279 times, compared with 59,229 requests from the …

Federal Communications Chairman Ajit Pai has started to roll back Obama-era net neutrality regulation, setting up a showdown between tech companies and broadband providers. In a speech in Washington on Wednesday, Pai outlined his plan for eliminating the utility style regulatory framework the FCC adopted in 2015, while still keeping principles to prevent broadband and wireless providers from favoring their …

Remember life without your phone? No, neither do I. And in a few years, you’ll feel the same way about augmented reality, or AR. You’ve already had a taste of AR if you’re one of the 500 million who downloaded Pokemon Go — it’s what made it possible to see a Charmander on your desk or a Dratini on your …

We know governments send requests to Google for our data. We know they sometimes get a court order, and they’ve even done so secretly. And though Google puts out a semiannual transparency report giving us a broad sense of how often governments are asking to access private data of its users, Google says a new problem has cropped up: The …

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai met with executives at Facebook, Cisco, Oracle, Intel and other major tech companies this week as the federal agency considers rolling back controversial net neutrality rules. Pai traveled to Silicon Valley Monday to talk to companies that participate in the “internet economy,” he told reporters at a news conference following the Federal Communications Commission’s monthly meeting. …

Is Bose spying on consumers? One of its customers thinks it is, and has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit to stop the practice. Kyle Zak claims Bose uses its wireless headphones and companion Bose Connect app to violate the US Wiretap Act by “secretly collecting, transmitting, and disclosing its customers’ private music and audio selections to third parties, including a …

While the majority of people can agree on the importance of fast internet, Americans are having a hard time figuring out who should be responsible for it. A Pew Research study took a look at how Americans feel about local governments building their own broadband networks and providing subsidies for low-income homes to get access to faster internet. While 90 …

Brave, a new web browser challenging bigger rivals like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, wants to take privacy on the internet to the next level. Like all other browsers, Brave includes a “private browsing” option that leaves no traces of online activity on your computer and makes websites think you’ve never visited before. But the startup is working on adding …