Online privacy

Democrats and Google executives worked arm in arm for years, particularly during the Obama administration. But when Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, testifies before Congress, some of the toughest questioning is likely to come from Democrats. The hearing will provide an early glimpse of how Democrats plan to approach Silicon Valley giants in the coming year as they assume control of the House of Representatives.

A new study by MIT researchers finds that the growing practice of compiling massive, anonymized datasets about people’s movement patterns is a double-edged sword: While it can provide deep insights into human behavior for research, it could also put people’s private data at risk. Companies, researchers, and other entities are beginning to collect, store, and process anonymized data that contains “location stamps” (geographical coordinates and time stamps) of users.

A broad coalition of more than 200 retailers, banks and technology companies is releasing new recommendations for national privacy legislation in a clear push to get out in front of lawmakers promising to rein in their data collection practices in the next Congress. The Business Roundtable’s consumer privacy legislation framework calls on the United States to adopt a national privacy law that calls on companies to give consumers more control of their data and form a national standard for breach notification. Recommendations to lawmakers include: 

With Democrats taking control of the House when the new session starts Jan 3, lawmakers and media players are re-adjusting their strategies and preparing for a slew of new hearings and investigations. Democrats have already started to circle their wagons around Nexstar’s proposed purchase of Tribune Media, with House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee Ranking Member David Cicilline (D-RI) saying that the merger “would undoubtedly lead to mass layoffs in newsrooms at a time when our free and diverse press is already under assault.”

Emails and other internal Facebook documents released by a British parliamentary committee show how the social media giant gave favored companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix special access to users’ data. The documents shine a light on Facebook’s internal workings from roughly 2012 to 2015, during a period of explosive growth as the company was navigating how to manage the mountains of data it was accumulating on users.

A look at four emerging forms of digital inequality: privacy, education, screen time and news. As ubiquitous as broadband connectivity may seem for those who live in cities or suburbs with comfortable incomes, here's the reality:

Marriott International, one of the largest hotel chains in the world, revealed that its Starwood reservations database had been hacked and that the personal information of up to 500 million guests could have been stolen. An unauthorized party had accessed the database since 2014.

Facebook executives in recent years appeared to discuss giving access to their valuable user data to some companies that bought advertising when it was struggling to launch its mobile ad business, according to internal emails quoted in newly-unredacted court filings. In an ongoing federal court case against Facebook, the plaintiffs claim that the social media giant doled out people’s data secretly and selectively in exchange for advertising purchases or other concessions, even as others were cut off, ruining their businesses.

On Nov 27, the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection held an oversight hearing on the Federal Trade Commission. The hearing examined the FTC’s “priorities in promoting competition and consumer protection, the ongoing innovation hearings and how changes in technology impact the agency, and whether the FTC should have expanded authority with respect to privacy and data security.” In other words -- is the FTC doing a good enough job? And if not, what needs change?