personal data

Personal Data Connector Singly Raises $7M

Liz Gannes in Social on April 23 at 5:30 am PT

Singly, which aims to smooth the process of respectfully including personal data in new applications, has raised $7 million in Series A funding led by Foundry Group.

Motorola: Act Now and We’ll Include the Previous Owner’s Personal Data on Your Refurbished Xoom Free!

John Paczkowski in News on February 3 at 1:11 pm PT

Motorola sells a bunch of refurbished Xoom tablets without wiping them of their previous owners’ data.

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EU Panel to Affirm Location Is Private

John W. Miller, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on May 12, 2011 at 11:47 am PT

The European Union’s top advisory body on online privacy will issue an opinion this month saying that information collected by phone and Internet companies on customer locations must be treated like names, birthdays and other personal data, EU officials say.

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Google Takes Heat Over App Security

Spencer E. Ante and Amir Efrati, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 8, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

A major software attack on mobile phones has put pressure on Google Inc. to do more to secure its online store for smartphone applications. The company behind the now ubiquitous Android operating system came under fire after computer-security experts last week uncovered more than 50 malicious applications that were uploaded to and distributed from Google’s Android Market.

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TV's Next Wave: Tuning In to You

Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on March 7, 2011 at 5:00 am PT

The television is channeling you. Data-gathering firms and technology companies are aggressively matching people’s TV-viewing behavior with other personal data—in some cases, prescription-drug records obtained from insurers—and using it to help advertisers buy ads targeted to shows watched by certain kinds of people.

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U.K.: Google Breached Laws

Paul Sonne, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on November 3, 2010 at 8:53 am PT

U.K. officials ruled Wednesday that Google Inc. broke the law by collecting data from wireless networks for its Street View mapping service, reflecting growing scrutiny in Europe of the U.S. Internet company’s privacy practices.

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Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers

Nicholas Carr, Blogger, Rough Type, Author, "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains." in News on August 6, 2010 at 1:10 pm PT

In a 1963 Supreme Court opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren observed that “the fantastic advances in the field of electronic communication constitute a great danger to the privacy of the individual.” The advances have only accelerated since then, along with the dangers. Today, as companies strive to personalize the services and advertisements they provide over the Internet, the surreptitious collection of personal information is rampant. The very idea of privacy is under threat.

No More Bing Brother, Says Microsoft

John Paczkowski in News on January 19, 2010 at 11:05 am PT

Google has long claimed that the server log data it collects are a critical driver of innovation. Over the years, to appease privacy advocates, the company has tweaked its treatment of those data and the length of time it stores them. Google continues to collect IP addresses, though it makes them anonymous after nine months. This may soon change. And not because of any initiative on Google’s part but because of one by Microsoft.

Succinctly Speaking With Steve Ballmer: Sidekick Fiasco "Not Good"

John Paczkowski in News on October 20, 2009 at 12:07 pm PT

T-Mobile Sidekick users who lost their personal data in a humiliating server failure at Microsoft subsidiary Danger last week are today restoring their contact lists–but not much else at this point.