Tag Archives: user data
Avast is shutting down its subsidiary that sold user data
Avast is shutting down its Jumpshot subsidiary after a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found that the two were selling user data to a host of large companies such as Expedia, Intuit and Keurig. The news comes just days after the two publ...
Avast packaged detailed user data to be sold for millions of dollars
The popular antivirus program Avast has been selling users data to giant companies like Google, Home Depot, Microsoft and Pepsi, a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag found. Avast reportedly scraped data from its antivirus software and hande...
Facebook’s new data tool lets you transfer your media to Google Photos
Facebook users will soon get more control over their data, with the introduction of a tool that lets them bulk export their media, rather than having to save and re-upload things one by one.
Senate bill would block US companies from storing data in China
US Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) wants to make it illegal for US companies to store user data or encryption keys in China. He also wants to prevent Chinese companies from collecting any more info from American users than is necessary to provide th...
Facebook agrees to pay the UK £500K for the Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook may be looking ahead to the 2020 election, but it's still sweeping up debris from 2016. Today, Facebook agreed to pay the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) £500,000 (about $644,000) for its role in the Cambridge Analytica sc...
Senate bill aims to make user data ‘portable’ across social networks
Three senators think they have a way to address some of the antitrust concerns around social media companies. Today, Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) will introduce a bill that would f...
‘Harry Potter: Wizards Unite’ gathered location data while users slept
It's no secret that games like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and Pokémon Go track their users' locations. But it can be alarming to see just how much data companies like Niantic have. As part of an extensive report on how tech companies are mapp...
Facebook suspends tens of thousands of data-scraping apps
In the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook promised to investigate other apps with access to large amounts of user data. The app developer investigation is ongoing, but today, Facebook said it has reviewed millions of apps and susp...
Apple will still review Siri recordings, but only if you opt in
Earlier this month, Apple suspended the program which used contractors to review clips of audio gathered by Siri. Users were up in arms after they learned that the contractors sometimes heard sensitive information, like medical records, personal inte...