Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article accusing four online advertisers—Google, Vibrant Media, Media Innovation Group and PointRoll—of using special code on web pages to circumvent the privacy settings in the Apple Safari web browser for the purpose of “tracking the Web-browsing habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.” The Safari web browser is used by approximately 7 percent of desktop Internet users and 24 percent of mobile users. Google responded...

A few days ago, I received an email from an advocacy group alerting me to the fact that Google was causing trouble again on the consumer privacy front. Like any good Internet populist, I immediately went to sharpen my pitchfork and grab a torch to join the masses in public outrage. Unfortunately, my pitchfork was broken and I was all out of torches. Dismayed I went online to buy new ones. Unfortunately, when I tried to search online for “pitchfork”, the top search results directed me to a music...

This week has seen a flurry of articles on the Facebook Photo Tagging feature after the security firm Sophos posted a story on its blog noting that this feature, which had previously been limited to North American users, had now been extended to other regions. The Photo Tagging feature makes it easier for users to tag their friends in a photo. Initially, this feature required users to label every photo manually. Not surprisingly users asked for an easier way to do this and Facebook responded with...

Last Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in IMS Health v. Sorrell. This case centers on a Vermont law that prohibits the use of prescriber-identifiable data for marketing purposes unless the prescriber of the drug gives consent. This case is not about patient privacy or the use of patient-identifiable data which is protected under federal law. Other states, notably Maine and New Hampshire, have passed similar legislation that prohibits the commercial use of prescriber-identifiable...

The announcement yesterday morning may have been unexpected, but the revelations were not surprising. Yet today we find ourselves asking, how did we get to this point? Rumors, conspiracy theories, and unsubstantiated claims do not belong in the media, yet for the last week these had reached a new high as allegations, new and old, were endlessly repeated. Virtually every mainstream media outlet covered this story extensively, giving airtime, bandwidth and column space to unsupported claims and...

Last week two O’Reilly analysts posted a video explaining that Apple’s iOS 4, the operating system used on the iPhone and iPad, contained code that automatically logged a variety of time-stamped data that could be used to pinpoint where a device had been.This would allow someone with access to this data to construct a detailed picture of the device’s location history. Notably, the phone did not log GPS location data, but instead recorded location-related data based on cell towers and wifi networks...

In a recent Politico op-ed Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) wrote, “Online trackers claim the information they collect is anonymous and helps enhance the user’s experience. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. The truth is it only takes 33 ‘bits’ of information to uniquely identify someone.” While she was certainly not the first one to make this statement (indeed Arvind Narayanan at Stanford dedicates his blog “33 Bits of Entropy” to this topic), this assertion—that individuals can be identified with...

One of the fundamental debates around privacy is whether certain activities should be opt-in or opt-out.  However, lately it seems that giving users the ability to opt-in is not enough for the most hardline privacy fundamentalists. They do not even want to give consumers the right to choose. I do not want to rehash the debate on opt-in vs. opt-out, but I do want to discuss the current level of choice afforded Internet users.  First, let’s be clear: even when users do not “opt in” as it is traditionally...

While consumers have a vocal advocate for increased privacy regulation in the federal government with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), they currently lack an advocate for reducing barriers to the free flow of information. To remedy this, the Department of Commerce, whose mission it is to advance economic growth, jobs and opportunities for all Americans, should become the champion of pro-innovation information policies, rather than focus on the more narrow issue of consumer privacy at the expense...

In case you missed the announcement, today is Data Privacy Day, the once-a-year “international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through personal information.” While this annual event does not generate the same level of excitement among the masses as other esoteric holidays like International Talk Like A Pirate Day or Pi Day, its relative importance will likely eclipse these celebrations in the near future for the simple reason that the shear amount of personal data that has...