Security

Rep. Hank Johnson last week introduced into the U.S. House a new bill that could considerably change mobile app development. The bipartisan legislation would require application developers to gain explicit consent from consumers before collecting their data. It also would require developers to secur...

The mobile industry isn't doing enough to prevent cellphone theft or to help its victims, critics allege. Theft of mobile devices is on the rise. In some cities, notably Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, it represents a significant portion of all robberies. Device manufacturers could offer tech s...

Protecting Internet information has become a costly enterprise, with worldwide spending on security estimated at $60 billion in 2012. That figure will grow to $86 billion by 2016, according to a Gartner study. To help ensure that those investments are being spent wisely -- and to keep technology a s...

LivingSocial's customers received some bad news on Friday: The popular daily deal site had been hacked, compromising some 50 million members' customer data. There was some good news -- credit card data was not affected, the company promised in its notice to customers. Also, the Facebook credentials ...

From partial unpaid furloughs of personnel to travel cutbacks, U.S. government agencies are scrounging to come up with ways to save money. In that light, the Obama Administration's proposed 2014 federal budget for information technology resources is good news for agency IT shops -- and for vendors s...

The Federal Trade Commission filed a suit against Wise Media this week, accusing the company of slipping unauthorized charges into consumer cellphone bills. Wise Media allegedly charged cellphone users fees for services to which they'd never subscribed, a practice referred to as "cramming." The comp...

Google has engaged the Behavio team in a "hiring exercise." The startup uses mobile sensors to collect data and predict behavior. Its technology recognizes data such as location, contacts, nearby destinations, recent phone activity, daily movement, and even surrounding physical information such as t...

Facebook fans will get the chance to have the social network take over their lock and home screens on certain Android phones as of April 12, thanks to the introduction of the company's Home apps. That prime mobile phone real estate will also serve as comfortable surroundings for advertisements when ...

Proposed changes to the popular Mozilla Firefox browser that would block third-party cookies have sparked the ire of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which claims the move will hurt how small businesses use ads to attract customers. Mozilla's proposal will let users give their permission for the ...

Google has settled its Street View privacy case with 38 states and the District of Columbia. As part of the settlement, the company will destroy the personal information it collected under the project, train its employees on privacy issues for a 10-year period, launch a campaign to educate consumers...

There are more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world. As of last July, there were more than 321 million wireless subscriber connections in the U.S. alone. Of course, it is impossible that 101 percent of U.S. residents have wireless connections, so that means many of us have multiple subscriptio...

Kim Dotcom experienced a legal setback late last week when the New Zealand Court of Appeal overturned a lower court ruling that had required the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to disclose all of its evidence against him. However, his fight to avoid extradition is nowhere near closure. Nor has ...

Facebook users will soon see ads in their feeds that are more specifically targeted to what they like and where they've shopped -- both online and offline -- thanks to a series of agreements with data companies announced Wednesday. The agreements expand the social network's Custom Audiences program ...

The U.S. government has some unique -- and exacting -- security requirements related to the adoption of cloud technology. These internal government security hurdles have resulted in significant outreach to expertise from commercial information technology companies. The latest example is an invitatio...

The Federal Trade Commission last week reached a settlement with HTC America over charges the company failed to take reasonable steps to secure the software in its smartphones and tablet computers. The security flaws could have compromised the privacy of millions of consumers, the agency said. This ...