Online privacy

On March 26, 2019, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons spoke before the Free State Foundation about how the FTC’s two missions -- competition and consumer protection -- apply to the internet ecosystem.

Americans have a paradoxical attachment to the social-media platforms that have transformed communication, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds, saying they regard services such as Facebook to be divisive and a threat to privacy but continue to use them daily. Across age groups and political ideologies, adults in the survey said they held a negative view of the effects of social media—even though 70% use such services at least once a day.

A group of privacy experts from organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union is advocating for better laws and technologies that keep data collection from hurting you. One of these tools could be regulation that gives consumers more rights over their data, like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation.

This framework for US privacy legislation outlines clear rules of the road for entities using personal data, details strong rights for people who interact with those entities, and gives the FTC effective authority to make and enforce these rules as technologies evolve. In general, it is designed to shift more of the burden to safeguard personal data from users to companies, and to alleviate the burden on individuals.

The Federal Trade Commission told Congress that it only has 40 full-time employees dedicated to overseeing internet privacy and data security and requested lawmakers give the agency more resources to adequately police tech companies. FTC Chairman Joseph Simons wrote in a letter to House leaders that the commission lags far behind other developed countries’ data watchdogs.

More than 540 million Facebook records — including users’ comments, likes, account names and more — were left exposed on an Amazon cloud-computing server, researchers announced, marking the latest major privacy and security mishap to plague the social-networking giant. The trove is one of two data sets discovered to be in full public view by the security firm UpGuard, which also raised alarms with a second app developer that appears to have mishandled Facebook records including users’ interests and potentially their app passwords. Facebook said its policies prohibit app developers from “sto

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s call for new rules for the Internet is a start. The four proposals he makes open the door to a meaningful discussion about the effects of internet capitalism. Now what is needed is a similar look at the issues underlying the market dislocations caused by a handful of internet companies. As significant as Zuckerberg’s proposals are, it is important to recognize they deal with the effects of internet commerce more than their causes: the business model of internet companies.

To demonstrate what makes internet health meaningful for stakeholders and communities at the municipal level, this collection of case studies offers a portrait of a vibrant city working in different ways toward a common public good – an inclusive, safe, secure, open, and decentralized internet. The report examines how people, civil society institutions, government, and advocates – all committed to digital rights – can make our relationship to the internet healthier across five crucial issue areas:

Facebook may be facing a multi-billion dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission over its privacy practices, but it’s the possibility of mandated changes to its data-driven business model that could be much more threatening to the company and its bottom line. The agency could seek changes in company behavior as part of a negotiated settlement, including limiting the way it collects and handles user data — the lifeblood of Facebook's advertising-driven business.

When you signed up for cellphone service, I bet you didn’t expect that your exact location could be sold to anyone for a few hundred dollars. The truth is, your wireless carrier tracks you everywhere you go, whether you like it or not. When used appropriately, this tracking shouldn’t be a problem: location information allows emergency services to find you when you need them most.