Microsoft today announced the company would alter its privacy settings for its Bing search engine. Specifically, Microsoft will purge all (including Internet Protocol (IP) addresses) identifiable information to users search queries after 6-months.

Microsoft’s existing privacy policy already automatically unlinks search queries from Microsoft accounts (such as Hotmail), therefore removing any link between a users search query and an associated Microsoft account.

Yahoo currently most quickly purges identifiable information related to its users and their search queries to only 90-days. Google removes its data in about 10 months.

The world’s most popular online search engine, Google, today announced new changes for news content providers to limit the amount of news they provide free of charge.

The company introduced “First Click Free”, a new algorithm that can optionally limit each user to only 5 clicks per day for content from premium providers. On the 6th click, you will be taken to a subscription registration page.

Read the full story

A new iPhone worm has been created, this time posing a very serious threat as it has the capability to compromise sensitive information stored on the phone.

The worm currently can only infect iPod Touch and iPhone devices that are jailbroken.

The worm essentially works by launching the scripts immediately when the phone is started up, it then simply executes the worm at boot-up. Once the worm has been loaded, it sends sensitive data to the hackers by uploading it to a Lithuanian control server. The worm also has the capability to look for passwords in SMS messages via mTAN systems that are primarily used by financial institutions who use the technology to authenticate mobile users for online banking.

Read the full story

A technical error in the Google algorithm is indexing private voicemail recordings from Google Voice and making them available to the public.

If you currently search “site:https://www.google.com/voice/fm/*” in Google, it will return various voicemails, some dated as far back as many months ago, to even only hours ago.

As of right now, if you perform the search string noted above, the voicemails are still available publically with transcription.

Read the full story

This is a guest post by Harley Lorenz Geiger from the Center for Democracy & Technology

The digital signage industry is rapidly becoming aware of the privacy issues raised by interactivity and audience measurement techniques. There is, however, no industry-wide consensus about how to address those concerns. Some industry figures agree that privacy guidelines need to be adopted if audience measurement and other digital signage applications are to progress. Others, though, have referred to calls for the industry to be sensitive to privacy as “attacks” and have condemned privacy concerns as a lot of hype over nothing. The privacy issue is real, particularly if one considers the big picture of where digital out-of-home (DOOH) media is headed.

Read the full story

This is a guest post by Harley Lorenz Geiger from the Center for Democracy & Technology

Marketers are creating digital signs that can display targeted ads based on information they extract from examining the contours of individual human faces.

These smart signs are proliferating in commercial establishments and public places from New York’s Times Square to St. Louis area shopping malls. They are a powerful innovation in advertising, but one that raises compelling privacy issues – issues that should be addressed now, before digital signs that monitor our behavior become the new normal.

Read the full story

BlackBerry maker RIM Chief Information Officer Robin Bienfait told ZDNet in a Sydney interview that RIM recorded communications with employees to protect its intellectual property. When asked whether phone conversations were recorded she said: “Everything. I record everything.” She maintains employees knew they would be monitored and no wrongdoing was done. She also said if employees wanted privacy, they should use personal devices.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg today at 11am PST hosted a telephone conference about the new changes to the Facebook terms of service, and the new program to allow Facebook users to actually create privacy policies.

CNET has the live coverage of the phone conference here.

You may remember recently there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the new Facebook terms of service agreements that essentially allowed Facebook to keep your user generated content indefinitely and use it however it wanted. Facebook has since reverted back to its previous terms.

PALO ALTO, Calif. - February 26, 2009 - Facebook today announced a new approach to site governance that offers its users around the world an unprecedented role in determining the future policies governing the service. Facebook released the first proposals subject to these new procedures–The Facebook Principles, a set of values that will guide the development of the service, and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities that make clear Facebook’s and users’ commitments related to the service.

Over the coming weeks, users will have the opportunity to review, comment, and vote on these documents. An update to the Privacy Policy is also planned, and this change will be subject to similar input.

Recent changes made to the Facebook TOS agreements have raised very important privacy concerns. The TOS now outlines Facebook can indefinitely store and use basically anything you post in anyway it likes.

The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.

In other words, even if Read the full story