After the spying scandal with the NSA and tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft broke last year, many Internet users became concerned that their data was falling into the government’s hands without their knowledge. However, a new layer to the NSA’s relationship to Facebook was revealed this week when a report was published at FirstLook.org…
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Facebook’s $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app that’s wildly popular overseas, raised many eyebrows not only for the exorbitant price but for the potential privacy implications the transaction could hold for WhatsApp users. The app has over 450 million users, all of whom had no idea their data and information would one…
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Facebook announced this week that they will institute a new firearms policy for on both Facebook and Instagram that will make it much harder for people to acquire firearms. An advocacy group, Moms Demand Action, had gathered over 230,000 signatures on a petition asking the site to take a stronger stance on preventing the illegal…
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According to a TechCrunch report this week, Facebook is in talks to buy Titan Aerospace, a company that manufactures solar-powered drones that can fly for five years without needing to land. The site’s interest in the company is speculative at this point, though it’s assumed Facebook wants the technology for the Internet.org initiative, which aims…
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Patrick Snay, the 69-year-old former head of Gulliver Preparatory School in Florida, filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the school when his contract wasn’t renewed in 2011. Snay and the school reached a settlement agreement for $80,000, plus $10,000 in backpay and $60,000 for Snay’s attorney. The deal looked to be in the clear –…
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The Wall Street Journal published a devastating critique of Facebook’s advertising last week, detailing some of the inappropriate ads that reach teenaged Facebook users. The WSJ piece tells the story of 14-year-old Erica Lowder, who clicked on an ad for an app called Ilikeq that lets users rate a person’s attractiveness and comment on their…
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A Los Angeles woman is suing Sprint for invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional distress and identity theft after several photos of her engaged in sexual acts were posted to her Facebook profile from a phone that she traded in to a Sprint store in April of last year. The lawsuit claims that an employee…
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The illicit trade or sale of guns on Facebook and social media is a dark part of their potential uses, though up until this point, Facebook has been powerless to stop it. Now, however, a group of crusading mothers has entered formal discussions with Facebook to find ways to prohibit the sale of guns on…
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Up until now, Facebook has allowed only friends and family members of deceased Facebook users to view the individual’s profile. However, the site will now respect the privacy settings of deceased users and leave them “as-is” after their death. “This will allow people to see memorialized profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person’s…
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In a decision that directly contradicted one reached by an earlier German court, the Higher Court of Berlin ruled this week that Facebook must comply with German privacy rules. Germany has more strict data privacy laws than many other European nations, and the country has consistently challenged Facebook’s privacy practices. The German high court found…
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