Privacy

The battle over internet privacy has been around as long as the web itself, and while it's probably true that there never will be such a thing as true anonymity on the internet, privacy advocates believe that the less information that's collected about you, the better. Whether or not you have anything to hide, do you really want companies like Google and Yahoo! to be able to sell information about your browsing habits to advertisers without your knowledge or approval?

A recent class action lawsuit threatens to blow the lid off of Comcast's alleged data discrimination policy. Jon Hart, a San Francisco Comcast subscriber is suing the communications giant on a variety of charges, ranging from breach of contract to computer fraud.

Internet giant Yahoo and was under ethical fire yesterday in Congress’s House Foreign Affairs Committee. Members of the committee met with Yahoo’s chief executive Jerry Yang who was testifying on Yahoo’s handling of an incident in China that led to the incarceration of a dissident.

Can you trust your phone company to protect your private information? Apparently not.  Since 2005, Verizon complied with 94,000 FBI record requests, at least 780 of which it turned over without warrant. The requests included phone and IP records, and were not limited to counter-terrorism investigations.