Privacy and Regulation

FTC: Google Pushing Its Own Products in Search Results Is Fair Game

FTC: Google Pushing Its Own Products in Search Results Is Fair Game

The agency decided on a 5-0 vote that Google's prominent promotion of its own products and services in search results is not biased towards competitors.

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Amazon's and Facebook's Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies

Amazon's and Facebook's Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies

Two of the biggest publishers on the web don't use the advertising industry's standardized ad-privacy program, and that's a problem for even the largest digital-media buyers.

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Facebook Always Could Serve Ads to Kids

Facebook Always Could Serve Ads to Kids

Changes to COPPA won't change most websites' approach to kids, including Facebook, which technically doesn't allow children under 13.

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FTC Aims to Bring Child Privacy Law Into 21st Century

FTC Aims to Bring Child Privacy Law Into 21st Century

FTC's update to COPPA accounts for the massive growth of mobile device usage among kids and the data collection that goes along with it.

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Capitol Hill Focuses on Mobile Privacy With Spate of Actions

Capitol Hill Focuses on Mobile Privacy With Spate of Actions

Marketers must heed what's happening under the radar as regulators and lawmakers home in on mobile privacy.

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IAB Aims to Help Site Publishers Plug Data Leaks

Many publisher sites are cluttered with long-forgotten tags that may have been added years ago and are now a big source of lost data.

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Mobile-Privacy Bill Edges Closer to Senate Vote

Mobile-Privacy Bill Edges Closer to Senate Vote

The Location Privacy Protection Act would require companies to obtain user consent before collecting or sharing mobile location data.

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FTC Intensifies Scrutiny of Kids' Mobile Privacy

FTC Intensifies Scrutiny of Kids' Mobile Privacy

A Federal Trade Commission study finds widespread data collection by mobile apps targeting children.

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What New Congressional Leaders Could Mean for Online Privacy

What New Congressional Leaders Could Mean for Online Privacy

Opponents of privacy legislation are gaining some prominence with the ascension of Rep. Marsha Blackburn to vice chair of a key committee.

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Use of Tracking Cookies on the Rise as Advertisers Seek More Data From Web Surfers

Bluekai set the most tracking cookies on the top 100 sites in October -- 328 up from 321 in May, according to a U.C. Berkeley study.

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I Was Behaviorally Targeted After Using Microsoft's Do Not Track Browser

I Was Behaviorally Targeted After Using Microsoft's Do Not Track Browser

DNT should have made me invisible to ad trackers, thus turning my online-browsing experience from relevant-messaging bliss to a belly-fat-ad nightmare. The reality was quite different.

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What Microsoft's Default 'Do Not Track' Browser Setting Looks Like

What Microsoft's Default 'Do Not Track' Browser Setting Looks Like

We took Internet Explorer 10 for a test drive. Its impact seems muted, if not moot.

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Consumer Reports Says Do Not Track, But Tracks Anyway

Consumer Reports Says Do Not Track, But Tracks Anyway

Organization issues a call to action against online tracking, but does not disclose that its website is laden with ad-tracking technologies.

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Obama's Approach to Big Data: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Obama's Approach to Big Data: Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Obama and others push for regulations on some of the very tactics they use to get elected.

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