News Byte
Mike Isaac in Social on May 17 at 4:18 pm PT
Twitter began rolling out tailored suggestions for users to follow on Thursday, aiming to give Twitter newcomers better direction in learning how to navigate the somewhat abstruse microblogging platform. The suggestions stem from a tracking cookie Twitter sends to new users, allowing the company to see sites visited within the past 10 days. Twitter then uses that information to recommend who to follow. Users can also opt out of this service.
Voices
Julia Angwin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 16 at 3:30 am PT
Regulators in the U.S. and European Union are investigating Google Inc. for bypassing the privacy settings of millions of users of Apple Inc.’s Safari Web browser, according to people familiar with the investigations. Google stopped the practice last month after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal.
News Byte
Peter Kafka in Media on February 28 at 6:15 am PT
Gordon McLeod, the former head of Dow Jones’s digital publications, has a new job at an ad tech start-up. He’s now president at
Krux, a two-year-old “data management platform” that helps publishers control “cookie” data that tracks Web surfers’ movements. Last fall, Krux
raised $11 million in a round led by Accel and IDG.
McLeod left News Corp.’s Dow Jones, where he oversaw business operations for multiple sites, including this one, in 2010.
Peter Kafka in Media on January 25 at 4:00 am PT
An ad tech linkup that makes sense.
Voices
Tom Loftus, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on January 17 at 2:33 pm PT
Google today rolled out a new effort designed to educate consumers on technology terms like “cookies” and “IP addresses” and explain a few things about privacy online.
Liz Gannes in Social on December 21, 2011 at 9:36 am PT
The Irish Data Protection Commission today concluded that Facebook has “a positive approach and commitment” to protecting the privacy of its international users.
Voices
Julia Angwin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on August 18, 2011 at 12:01 am PT
Major websites such as MSN.com and Hulu.com have been tracking people’s online activities using powerful new methods that are almost impossible for computer users to detect, new research shows.
Liz Gannes in Media on May 24, 2011 at 2:28 pm PT
New European Union privacy regulations that require Web sites to get consent from EU users before tracking them around the rest of the Web will go into effect Wednesday. The directive is aimed at cookies used for targeted advertising, and applies to companies operated in any country.
Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on January 24, 2011 at 3:04 pm PT
Like Mozilla, Google has heeded the call of U.S. regulators to give Web users an easy way to stop companies from tracking their online activities for targeting advertising.
