Opera’s VPN returns to its Android browser

Opera had a couple of tumultuous years behind it, but it looks like the Norwegian browser maker (now in the hands of a Chinese consortium) is finding its stride again and refocusing its efforts on its flagship mobile and desktop browsers. Before the sale, Opera offered a useful stand-alone and built-in VPN service. Somehow, the […]

View More Opera’s VPN returns to its Android browser

Opera’s VPN returns to its Android browser

Opera had a couple of tumultuous years behind it, but it looks like the Norwegian browser maker (now in the hands of a Chinese consortium) is finding its stride again and refocusing its efforts on its flagship mobile and desktop browsers. Before the sale, Opera offered a useful stand-alone and built-in VPN service. Somehow, the […]

View More Opera’s VPN returns to its Android browser

Facebook reveals its ‘privacy-focused vision for social networking’

In a post on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook page, the social network CEO laid out his vision to rebrand Facebook as “a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform.” Facebook’s new core targets will be private interactions, encryption, permane…

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A new Congress means a new opportunity for consumer privacy protections

Debra Berlyn Contributor Share on Twitter Debra Berlyn is the president of Consumer Policy Solutions and the executive director of Project GOAL, a project to raise awareness of both the benefits and challenges of innovative new technologies for the aging community. The 2018 mid-term elections, for the first time in U.S. history, resulted in a […]

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Tor should be your internet best friend

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Essentials Week spotlights unexpected items that make our daily lives just a little bit better.


Privacy and internet — sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? Contrary to the popular belief, however, the two really can go together. 

Yes, our data (which, to be fair, we often willingly give away to third parties without blinking) can be at the mercy of huge companies which sell it for advertising purposes or the prying eyes of governments as well as hackers. But there are simple, unobtrusive ways of keeping your data and online activities private in all except the most extreme of circumstances.  Read more…

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Oath agrees to pay $5M to settle charges it violated children’s privacy

TechCrunch’s Verizon-owned parent, Oath, an ad tech division made from the merging of AOL and Yahoo, has agreed to pay around $5 million to settle charges that it violated a federal children’s privacy law. The penalty is said to be the largest ever issued under COPPA. The New York Times reported the story yesterday, saying the […]

View More Oath agrees to pay $5M to settle charges it violated children’s privacy

Openbook is the latest dream of a digital life beyond Facebook

As tech’s social giants wrestle with antisocial demons that appear to be both an emergent property of their platform power, and a consequence of specific leadership and values failures (evident as they publicly fail to enforce even the standards they claim to have), there are still people dreaming of a better way. Of social networking beyond outrage-fuelled […]

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3 ways California is leading the country in digital rights

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In the past, California has exerted something like a gravitational pull on the rest of the United States; in both legislation and civil liberties, where the Golden State goes — with its 12 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of the country’s GDP — the U.S. has often followed. Digital rights advocates can (and should) hope that it continues with our electronic freedoms.

On Friday, California passed a sweeping consumer privacy bill that provides the strongest protection of consumer data in the U.S. Some are even describing it as California’s own GDPR, the European data protection legislation that went into effect in the E.U. at the end of May. Read more…

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Facebook rolls out GDPR privacy checkups worldwide

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It’s the final countdown. The deadline for compliance with Europe’s new privacy laws, the GDPR, is Friday, May 25. That means that companies across the internet are asking, in plain and recognizable language, all of their customers to review usually-skipped over privacy settings — including Facebook. Hallelujah.

On Thursday, CNBC reported that Facebook will start rolling out GDPR-compliant privacy check-ups to users across the world. They specifically ask users to review what kind of data they consent to for ad targeting, the personal information (such as religious affiliation) that they share, and whether they’ll allow facial recognition. Read more…

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Europeans asked Google for their ‘Right to be Forgotten’ 2.4 million times

After three years in effect, the European ruling with a name that sounds like it’s straight out of a science-fiction book is revealing the things people most want to hide about themselves online.
Google published a new transparency report on Monday e…

View More Europeans asked Google for their ‘Right to be Forgotten’ 2.4 million times

Netflix pulls some Big Brother nonsense with your data

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Netflix watches you, too.

The streaming service sent what it probably thought was an innocuous-enough tweet Saturday night, ribbing a few dozen of its users for partaking in a holiday-inspired B-movie binge.    

To the 53 people who’ve watched A Christmas Prince every day for the past 18 days: Who hurt you?

— Netflix US (@netflix) December 11, 2017

We reached out to a Netflix rep, who confirmed the tweet is accurate: 53 people have watched A Christmas Prince every day for 18 days. Imagine being one of them right now.

This is nakedly dystopic messaging from a secretive internet video company that collects reams of data from 109 million subscribers — and rarely gives us a peek behind its curtain. I mean, jeez, Netflix is offering tinsel-dusted gruel on its platform and mocking people who consume said gruel every single day (for 18 days). As if there’s a “correct” way to watch a mildly uplifting Christmas movie in an era when death by nuclear hellfire seems more assured with each passing second. Read more…

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1.7 million accounts hacked in 2014 Imgur data breach

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Good Guy Greg, Scumbag Steve, and their fellow meme friends had better shore up their online security.

On Friday, photo sharing community Imgur broke the news that the company was the target of a security breach in 2014. According to a company blog post, the data breach gained access to the email addresses and passwords of 1.7 million Imgur users. 

On November 23, we were notified about a data breach on Imgur that occurred in 2014. While we are still actively investigating the intrusion, we wanted to inform you as quickly as possible as to what we know and what we are doing in response. More: https://t.co/qElAetGVIc

— Imgur (@imgur) November 25, 2017 Read more…

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