Online Privacy | featured news

Advertisers are girding for battle against browser mechanisms intended to offer more online privacy. At stake is nothing less than the future of the surveillance economy.

The web giant and other ad companies bypassed privacy settings in Apple's Safari browser on mobile devices and computers – tracking the online habits of people who intended for that kind of monitoring to be blocked.

The Facebook "Like" and Twitter "Tweet" buttons that appear on so many websites do a lot more than just help you share content with friends.

The Walt Disney Company has agreed to pay a $3 million settlement stemming from charges that online virtual worlds once operated by Playdom, now a Disney subsidiary, violated the Federal Trade Commission rules designed to protect the online privacy of children under age 13. According to the FTC, several Playdom sites that were aimed at young audiences illegally collected and then disclosed personal data in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). These sites included Pony Stars, 2 Moons, 9 Dragons, Age of Lore, and My DIva Doll.

Although it lacks a 'do not track' provision, the bill's advocates say it would enact the first comprehensive protections for consumers' digital data transmitted from computers or other devices.Internet privacy is shaping up as the consumer issue of the year in Congress, as evidenced by new legislation introduced with bipartisan support from two former presidential candidates.