Online privacy

At this time, we believe attackers targeted certain Twitter employees through a social engineering scheme. What does this mean? In this context, social engineering is the intentional manipulation of people into performing certain actions and divulging confidential information. The attackers successfully manipulated a small number of employees and used their credentials to access Twitter’s internal systems, including getting through our two-factor protections. As of now, we know that they accessed tools only available to our internal support teams to target 130 Twitter accounts.

A pilot program designed to enable the tens of millions of Americans who participate in the US Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy groceries online is exposing them to a loss of their privacy through increased data collection and surveillance, as well as risks involving intrusive and manipulative online marketing techniques. Online grocers and retailers use an orchestrated array of digital techniques—including granular data profiling, predictive analytics, geolocation tracking, personalized online coupons, AI and machine learning —to promote u

The European Union's top court threw a large portion of transatlantic digital commerce into disarray, ruling that data of EU residents is not sufficiently protected from government surveillance when it is transferred to the United States. The European Court of Justice ruled that a commonly-used data protection agreement known as Privacy Shield did not adequately uphold EU privacy law. US security authorities have far-reaching access to personal data stored on US territory that “are not circumscribed” in a way that is equivalent to EU rules, the court ruled. The court said that it was

In comments submitted to the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee as they develop their party platforms for 2020, New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) made recommendations on the following:

Floating 12 miles above the earth, high above commercial aircraft, internet balloons offer the possibility of online connection for hundreds of millions of people living in emerging markets. Loon, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has launched its first commercial project in Kenya. Success will lead more countries to seek a deal. Loon has already proved that its polyethylene, solar-powered helium balloons work by providing internet access to hurricane-hit Puerto Rico. Kenya is a test of whether the service can be profitable.

As states began to more systematically document the demographics of those falling ill, it quickly became clear that Black and Latinx communities were far more likely to suffer the lethal impact of the virus. But, today, most technological innovations remain strangely ‘colorblind’ to the reality that racial inequalities play a significant role in where COVID-19 makes the most significant impact.

The broadband industry has lost a key initial ruling in its bid to kill a privacy law imposed by the state of Maine. The top lobby groups representing cable companies, mobile carriers, and telecoms —ACA, CTIA, NCTA, and USTelecom — sued Maine in Feb, claiming the privacy law violates their First Amendment protections on free speech and that the state law is preempted by deregulatory actions taken by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission.

Here’s a look at what some digital privacy experts view as standouts in legislative online privacy efforts at the state level, and some of the sticking points in those and federal proposals.

One of the most important privacy cases you’ve never heard of is being litigated right now in a federal district court in Maine. ACA v. Frey is a challenge by the nation’s largest broadband Internet access providers to a Maine law that protects the privacy of the state's broadband Internet users.