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Archives » Spam/Spyware/Intrusive

Data Privacy at Home: One-Third Snoop on Partners

Published 6 months, 3 weeks ago

Data Privacy in Households

Personal data is not just the concern of large internet companies and government regulators. A recent Retrevo Gadgetology study found that there’s a lot of snooping and tracking going on among people who know each other. More than a third of respondents,  --  33% --  admitted to checking a boyfriend’s or girlfriends email or call history without their knowledge. Slightly more married couples snoop on their spouses (37%) and an even larger number of parents spy on their kids (39%). The number of parents snooping is highest among parents of teenagers with 60% snooping on their kids and possibly for good reason as 14% of those parents reported finding something they were concerned about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PayPal Sues over Google Wallet | FTC Opens Comments about Online Ad Rules

Published 8 months, 1 week ago

  • PayPal sued Google and two Google executives on May 26 over the company's freshly released mobile payment product, Google Wallet, reports Direct Marketing News. According to the filing, Google, and two former PayPal executives now working at Google, misappropriated trade secrets and breached their contracts to develop the Google Wallet mobile application, unveiled the same day as the filing. PayPal currently is also testing its own mobile payment service in a trail initiative with retailers.

  • The Federal Trade Commission announced its plans to conduct an overhaul of its May 2000 online advertising rules, known as the "Dot Com Disclosures." The FTC is requesting public comments on how to adapt its online advertising rules to the technological and legal advances of the past decade, Reuters reports.

  • Multiple applications available in the official Android Market were found to contain malware that can compromise a significant amount of personal data, reports mobile security providers, Lookout. Twenty-six applications were found to be infected with malware that Lookout is calling “Droid Dream Light” (DDLight), and they estimate that between 30,000 and 120,000 users have been affected.

Experian Hitwise Releases bin Laden-related Traffic Stats | SocialVibe “Live” Engagement on FB

Published 9 months, 1 week ago
Experian Hitwise released highlights of the surge in web traffic following news of Osama bin Laden’s death, and the special-ops mission by an elite Navy SEAL team:
  • The daily visits to News & Media websites reached a three-year high for the second time this year on Monday, May 2, 2011 following the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The previous peak was on March 11, 2011 from the news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
  • Yahoo! News ranked first among the News & Media websites on Monday, May 2, 2011 and experienced an increase of 200% in total overall visits when compared to the previous Monday. MSNBC and The Huffington Post followed, with an increase of 257% and 245%, respectively, during the same time frame. Visits to the websites of other Broadcast Media such as CNN and ABC News also experienced triple-digit growth.
  • The search terms driving traffic to the News & Media category on Monday were dominated by content surrounding the Bin Laden death, with ‘bin laden wives’ ranked first followed by ‘osama bin laden dead’. Out of the top 100 search terms, 30 were Bin Laden related, with 6 of those search queries including the term ‘photo’ or video’ as some called for additional evidence. Interest also grew for news around the Navy Seal Team 6, the secret unit involved in the operation and the mansion where it took place.

Sony: 24.6 Million More Users Affected | BrightRoll: Online Video Ads to be Bright Spot

Published 9 months, 1 week ago
  • The news doesn’t get better for Sony. On the heels of their apology, announcement of resuming services, and their “Welcome Back” promotion, the company said that another 24.6 million users have had their personal data compromised – including 10,700 users in Austria, Germany, The Netherlands and Spain whose bank account number, customer name, account name and customer address in the hands on hackers since about April 16 or 17. An additional 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (sans security code) were confirmed breached as well. With the discovery of this additional information, the company shut down all servers related to SOE services while continuing to review and upgrade all of its online security systems. The additional millions of users affected was discovered was discovered by engineers and security consultants reviewing Sony Online Entertainment systems.

Twitter Steals Obama’s Thunder | Sony to Restart PlayStation, Qriocity

Published 9 months, 1 week ago
  • Twitter helped stir the rumor soup prior to President Obama’s announcement that special forces had targeted and killed Osama bin Laden, writes lostremote.com, with a former aide to Donald Rumsfeld, given credit for the breaking news. Keith Urbahn tweeted, “So I'm told by a reputable person that they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn." Within ten minutes, Fox and the New York Times tweeted confirmations of the news. As well, the Wall Street Journal has located a tweeter from inside Pakistan -- Sohaib Athar, who uses the Twitter handle “ReallyVirtual,” tweeting repeatedly throughout the night, including, “Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not ‘ours’, so must be a complicated situation#abbottabad”

Chart: Common Features of a Data Breach

Published 9 months, 2 weeks ago
About this chart: Source: Verizon Business, "2011 Data Breach Investigations Report"

At Sony, Financial, Personal Data of 77 Million Users Stolen

Published 9 months, 2 weeks ago
Sony suffered a massive breach in its video game online network that led to the theft of names, addresses, birth dates, and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts in what is one of the largest-ever Internet security break-ins, Reuters reports. The breach occurred between April 17 and 19, but the company suspended availability of gaming, and online entertainment programs available on its PlayStation Network & Qriocity networks in the interim, and waited until April 26 to make a statement. The details of the data breach, according to the Sony web site: “We believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained.” The company expects to restore the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services within a week. For a perspective on how the recent data breach cases contribute to the overall problem, according to Verizon Business' "2011 Data Breach Investigations Report," the upward trend had seemed to reach an apex in 2008, and after four years of increasing losses culminating in 2008’s record-setting 361 million, Verizon speculated in the report whether 2009’s drop to 144 million was a fluke or a sign of things to come. "2010’s total of less than four million compromised records seems to suggest it was a sign. But of what? And is it a permanent change in direction or a temporary detour?" their research asked.

Piracy: Google Pulls App, Advocate to Take on Advertisers | Review: XOOM Doom is Overstated

Published 10 months, 1 week ago
  • Google has removed popular music application Grooveshark from the Android Market, pulling the app creators battle with record labels over concerns it is facilitating music piracy. The search giant commented only to reiterate that it “removes apps from Android Market that violate [its] terms of service”, indicating that copyright issues motivated Google to remove the app from its marketplace, something that Apple did in August last year when Universal Music Group UK complained to the Cupertino-based company about the app, writes thenextweb.com.

Epsilon Restarts Marketing Campaigns

Published 10 months, 1 week ago
Alliance Data Systems Corporation, parent company of Epsilon, reaffirmed that the unauthorized entry into an Epsilon email system was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only. No personal identifiable information (PII) was compromised, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers or account information. Epsilon is working with authorities and external experts to conduct a full investigation to identify those responsible for the incident while also implementing additional security protocols in its email operations. Marketing campaigns were restarted, and Epsilon's email volumes are not expected to be significantly impacted, according to a company statement.

Lessons on Data Security and Crisis Management

Published 10 months, 1 week ago
“So what did we learn from the security breach? That is can happen to any company,” writes Austin Bliss, from e-mail marketing services firm FreshAddress, for multichannelmerchant.com. In the article are a few safety reminders, including: Never send account numbers, social security numbers or any other personal information. Only send over the information that the database marketer absolutely needs to contact your customers. As well, be sure to know what happens to the data after the campaign. Is it destroyed or stored for safe-keeping? Bliss says marketers and merchants also need a game plan in place, raising concern about the information flow in this recent incident. Some merchants and marketers were just getting the word out to its customers this week about the possible breach that took place on March 30. Epsilon sent a release out on April 1. The Epsilon website statement is here.
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