Data Collection

According to new research, brand-new Android smartphones comes with pre-installed apps which are used for data harvesting, tracking and monitoring, all without the knowledge of the user.

Germany set a new precedent with an antitrust ruling against Facebook, forcing the company to make major changes to their data collection practices – German users are to be given a greater degree of notice and choice in how their data is used.

New study by the Center for Data Innovation showed that only 1 in 5 Americans will pay a monthly subscription fee for online privacy despite the result that 80% want Internet companies to collect less personal data about them.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has emerged as one of the strongest voices in the battle over consumer data privacy, and this time calling for a data broker clearinghouse to be created by the FTC.

Search engines provide an indispensable service but there is a data privacy tradeoff. The cost is a certain level of intrusion into our lives by gathering data about our online habits and monetizing that data.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee argues that nothing short of a ‘revolution’ will stem abuse of the Internet and a new Internet Charter, a new Magna Carta, is essential to force tech giants to take concrete action to reinvent how the Internet is monetized and regulated.

A new report offers a never-before-seen look at Google data collection practices, raising new questions about the extent to which the top tech companies in the world collect and collate user data without their permission or knowledge.

If you’re going to download freemium mobile apps, just make sure you know the true cost of paying for a product - possibly having your information compromised or your privacy violated.

Simply following the law is not enough to meet ethical data mining standards. Businesses need to be proactive not just because it’s the right thing to do but also for the enormous business benefits.

With high-profile scandals and the seemingly daily buzz of breaches, scams and exploits, it’s more and more obvious that the data points that make up your online profiles are a hot commodity. Time for the citizenry to take back their personal data and bring back responsibility into the ecosystem.