One simple update to Facebook gives users a much better overview why they see certain ads crop up again and again.
“The last search on his phone before Carson ended his life was for hacks to find out the identities of his abusers,” said Kristin Bride, the parent of a child suicide victim and a social media reform advocate. Bride testified before a panel of senators about the cyberbullying that led to her son’s death and the other…
Looking for lists of people with depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, or OCD? No problem. There are lots of companies who would love to sell it to you. They can even include names, emails, home addresses, income, ethnicity, and details about people’s children. It’s cheap too, with minimum purchases of just…
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the 886-bed hospital where I was born in Los Angeles, has a privacy problem. If you head to the Cedars website today you’ll be greeted by six ad trackers and 17 third-party cookies—according to the Markup’s Backlight tool—and, apparently, that’s an improvement.
New research suggests that users of top-of-the-line Android devices sold in China are getting their personal data pilfered left, right and center, according to new research. The collection, which is happening without notification or consent, could easily lead to the persistent tracking of users and the easy unmasking…
Want to save money on drugs? You could head to GoodRx.com. Type in the name of a medication, and the company will give you a coupon to use at a pharmacy. But there’s a little problem, one that GoodRx forgot to tell its customers about. Going back to at least 2017, GoodRx sent details about the medications you take to…
The Federal Trade Commission took historic action against the medication discount service GoodRx Wednesday, issuing a $1.5 million fine against the company for sharing data about users’ prescriptions with Facebook, Google, and others. It’s a move that could usher in a new era of health privacy in the United States.
Apps and websites are always wanting more, aren’t they? More data, more privileges, more control. As a result, you’ll often get a flurry of permissions or cookie pop-ups whenever you open up an app or a site for the first time, pop-ups that you might not always be paying full attention to as you try to get on with the…
Last week on Zoom, where I spend all the best moments of my life, I spoke with the chief product office of an ad tech company called FullThrottle. Amol Waishampayan said his company has a brand-new patented technique that will let companies collect even more of your data—ten times more data, he claims—and tie that…