Alright people, time to pack it up. It’s Quit Facebook Day, and it’s time we all banded together and showed Facebook exactly what we think of their privacy-convoluting ways! Oh, what, you’re not ready to leave Facebook? Yeah, me neither. As of right now, QuitFacebookDay.com has just over 27 thousand ‘committed’ members – those who have vowed today to delete their accounts and leave the site forever. Considering Facebook’s userbase is over 500 million, that doesn’t seem like an awful lot. “I personally never expected high numbers,” tweeted Matthew Milan, one of the site founders. “But something…

After a slew of loud criticism, Facebook have rolled out new, more understandable privacy controls. At the core of the changes is what Facebook calls a more simple approach to privacy and a universal setting that will control access to data across the platform. Now, change your settings to ‘friends of friends’ and it will apply to all your interactions with Facebook. Also, applications and external websites will now have to ask permission for access to any sort of private data. The only problem? It won’t matter. Your Data Is Like Crack To Facebook Facebook makes the bulk of its money in much the same…

By now, everyone in the tech world and beyond has heard about Google’s data collection from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in Germany. What you may not have known, however, is that Google has been collecting detailed user data since day one. Why? Essentially, as market research, which is then used to enhance their services. While the improvements that come as a result of Google’s data collection may benefit us all, it does come at a cost. Do you really want Google to have databases full of information regarding your online habits? Though Google does anonymize the data that they receive, it doesn’t…

This week will see a bunch of changes to Facebook’s privacy controls, addressing the ongoing concerns that Facebook is unconcerned with user privacy, offers only convoluted and confusing controls to handle it and has flat out lied about selling data to ad networks. At this point it’s ludicrous to assume Facebook has even good intentions for it’s users, but anything which simplifies the process of moderating privacy is a welcome change. The changes should begin appearing tomorrow, May 26th. Facebook’s vice president of product Chris Cox said it has been a humbling time for Facebook. It will…

The plane has all but crashed into the goddamn mountain for Facebook, but Zuckerberg is still hoping against hope to pull up before the moment of impact, promising new privacy controls and more or less apologizing for Facebook’s douchey stance on privacy over the last few months. ‘Sometimes we move too fast — and after listening to recent concerns, we’re responding,’ said Zuckerberg in a Washington Post column. ‘We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information.’ Y’know, it makes you wonder whose control he’s speaking of, doesn’t it? Okay, okay, so I’m taking…

It looks as though Facebook might face a court appearance before a federal judge in Canada real soon. This ongoing battle has to do with Facebook’s privacy settings. Canada’s privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, is currently drawing up a possible new investigation into Facebook for violations against Canada’s private-sector privacy act. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden states: “Although they’ve done some things right, in a few areas, they seem to have gone in the opposite direction, and that’s been disappointing. We’re waiting for Facebook to honor its commitments, but if we do see…

While I don’t like Facebook due to its stance on privacy, I believe that the outright witch hunt against Facebook isn’t exactly fair, and while this is or is not intentional, it couldn’t have come at a worse time for the social network goliath. Several social networking sites have been accused of sharing users’ personal data with advertisers on the down-low. This includes names and other forms of online ID that enable ad companies to discern specific users. In Facebook’s case, advertisers could also see from which other users’ profiles the clicks were coming. Like, come on, Facebook, not cool….

Privacy is a hot button issue right now, but Facebook isn’t the only big player vying for a piece of other people’s pies. Google too has stepped up and admitted it might have mistakenly collected personal data while shooting images for it’s Street View system. Google is no stranger to accusations of compromising user privacy online through it’s search products, but apparently decided to go old school, and took to the streets to collect information from users’ own wifi networks. Apparently, the Street View vehicle was programmed with the additional task of collecting data about open wifi hotspots…

Concerned about the security of your personal information on the internet? We all are, and thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, we’re more concerned than ever before. While having your Facebook profile show up in search engines for anyone talented enough to Google your name may be worrisome, it’s far from the worst case scenario. What if there was a website that pulled data from all of your social networking profiles, from Twitter to Flickr, and put it on display for anyone with curious eyes to see? I hate to break it to you, but there is… introducing… Spokeo! What Is A Spokeo? Founded by a team of Stanford…

“Do no evil.” That was the now famous philosophy that Google portrayed to the world, claiming that a business doesn’t need to be evil to be effective and make money. It sounds great, really. But we are left wondering what Facebook’s motto would look like: “What they don’t know won’t hurt them”? We regularly accept the fact that businesses have one goal: make money. If they are not making money, then they can’t survive. That’s a given. So we typically expect to be bombarded with advertising (granted, Facebook’s advertising is horrible in more ways than one), affiliate offers, promotional material,…