Neowin News Feed for: Privacy

Microsoft sees all your HTTPS links in Skype, and you didn't know

Paul Ferson — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:53:59 +0100

Since Skype's takeover by Microsoft, it seems the Redmond-based giant has been able to cast an approving eye over HTTPS links that are sent. Read more...

High tech identity theft is less common than you think

Christopher White — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:02:12 +0100

Did you know that most identity theft is done the old fashioned way, by stealing your mail, wallet, or social engineering on the phone? That's what we learned at the Secure360 conference today. Read more...

German Federal Court decides Google auto-complete can violate privacy

Paul Ferson — Tue, 14 May 2013 22:26:43 +0100

Germany's federal court has decided the Google auto-complete function can violate user privacy and former President Christian Wulff's wife is being used as the key example of this problem. Read more...

Microsoft: Only 47 percent of people try to protect their privacy online

John Callaham — Mon, 13 May 2013 18:27:41 +0100

Microsoft said that in a new survey, 87 percent of people say they are concerned with online privacy but just 47 percent take active measures to protect their online identity. Read more...

PSA: Whatsapp messages and contacts stored with mobile number

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:53:48 +0100

It's quite well known that the popular messaging service Whatsapp is far from secure. And now you can add another issue to that list of concerns that the company consistently ignores. Read more...

Microsoft launches new online privacy TV ad campaign

John Callaham — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:02:38 +0100

Microsoft has announced it has started a new campaign highlighting your online privacy that tries to put the focus on how Microsoft protects online users of products like Windows and IE. Read more...

Apple keeps your conversations with Siri for two years

Ben Buffone — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:21:57 +0100

Apple have revealed conservations you have with voice assistant Siri will be kept for up to two years. The announcement comes just days after questions were raised over users' privacy rights. Read more...

UltraSurf 13.01

Razvan Mihai Asmanow Serea — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 20:34:05 +0000

Ultrasurf enable users inside countries with heavy Internet censorship to visit any public web sites in the world safely and freely. Standalone application, no installation needed. Read more...

Twitter sued for $50M over protecting identity of anti-Semitic tweets

Christopher White — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 22:12:35 +0000

After a French court ruled Twitter had to turn over the identities of people engaged in anti-Semitic tweets, the company delayed and is now being sued for $50M for "playing the indifference card." Read more...

How Microsoft lets the Chinese government spy on its citizens via Skype

Vlad Dudau — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 12:56:09 +0000

A report exposes how the Chinese government uses TOM-Skype, the Chinese version of Microsoft's Skype, to spy on its citizens. The program searches for keywords and copies messages that contain them. Read more...

Facebook could soon track your every movement

Vlad Dudau — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 12:25:50 +0000

According to a new report Facebook is working on an app that would track users all the time to alert them to nearby friends. The app would definitely also be used to serve localized ads to its users. Read more...

Google has a solution to the password problem

Tim Schiesser — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 03:28:44 +0000

Google recognizes that traditional passwords are no longer safe, and so they've developed and are trialling an easy to use, hardware-based solution to the password problem Read more...

Microsoft under the EU microscope again

Andrew Stevenson — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:12:54 +0000

Microsoft is being investigated by EU data protection regulators for potential privacy issues, this time for changing the policies around Internet based services such as Hotmail and Bing. Read more...

PIPA creator launches, abandons, effort to expand email surveillance

Tyler Holman — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:03:18 +0000

PIPA co-author Patrick Leahy has apparently rewritten an amendment previously meant to protect email privacy to make warrantless access easier, then disowned the amendment via Twitter. Read more...

Skype gives 16 year old's private info to security firm

Vlad Dudau — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:41:34 +0000

Skype has dropped the ball on user privacy when it gave a Dutch 16-year old's personal information to a private security company without any legal obligation to do so. Read more...

US Government: All your cloud data are belong to us

Tyler Holman — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:41:45 +0000

Kim Dotcom might be gearing up to launch his new venture, but the EFF's fight for Megaupload users' data is far from over, and now the government is saying that they don't really own their cloud data. Read more...

Microsoft updates its Services Agreement prompting few privacy concerns

Vlad Dudau — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 10:48:55 +0100

Microsoft has made changes to some of its policies, getting more power over the data they collect. It's what Google did a few months back only without all the critiques and hysteria. Read more...

South Carolina decides that webmail isn't protected by privacy laws

Tyler Holman — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 16:55:59 +0100

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that webmail services like Outlook and Gmail aren't protected by existing digital privacy laws because they don't conform to laws written in the 1980s. Read more...

HTTPS Everywhere 3.0 protects users on-line

Alfonso Maruccia — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:33:30 +0100

The “encryption-enabler” browser add-on made by the EFF collective gets a new update, adding up many web sites to its protection list and promising a safer World Wide Web for everyone. Read more...

Another SkyDrive account gets blocked, raising privacy concerns

Tyler Holman — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 17:31:33 +0100

Microsoft's cloud storage locker, SkyDrive, has faced privacy concerns before, but another a new incident is raising new concerns over just how 'private' the 'private' cloud really is. Read more...