The world’s largest social networking website with over 500-million members, Facebook, has added support to a long requested feature, SSL connection support, which ensures personal data remains private by encrypting data before it is sent or received over the Internet.

Security experts warn users that access Facebook over public networks and unsecured wireless connections are most at risk, as malicious network software could be used by hackers to retrieve Facebook browser cookies that contain unencrypted personal information.

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The Ontario-based smartphone maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, Research In Motion (RIM), is seeking up to a two-year extension with the government of India as it works on meeting government requirements surrounding access to encrypted BlackBerry e-mails and messages.

RIM faced a nationwide BlackBerry ban in India in late August 2010 as the company held final stage negotiations that ultimately did not reach a consensus but still a ban was averted, which would have left more than 1.1-million mobile BlackBerry users without service in the country.

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The Japanese motor company, Honda, today issued an alert to U.S. customers concerning a security breach resulting from a hacked database.

The database that was managed by a third-party marketing group contained confidential information, including names of car owners, personal e-mail addresses, and even Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN).

The company downplayed the breach, saying it would be very difficult for the hackers to actually utilize the stolen information to steal a person’s identity.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Mark Stanley from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more on online privacy, visit CDT’s Take Back Your Privacy page.

For online privacy, the pressure is mounting in Washington, D.C. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a highly anticipated privacy report. The 122-page report was the subject of much discussion, with particular interest focused on the endorsement of an online “Do Not Track” mechanism.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Erica Newland from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC.

Google’s recent whitepaper on censorship as a trade barrier has brought renewed attention to the global economic impact of policies that curtail the free flow of information, especially policies that have emanated from China. But reports on China’s censorship regime have failed to mention an important gear in its machine of information control, one that has huge implications for governments and business and that strikes at the heart of our notion of free flows of information: For many university students in China, information from abroad is, quite literally, not free.

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The British government could pass new legislation allowing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the United Kingdom to regulate the flow of web data provided to consumers, businesses, and government, according to new comments made by the country’s Communications Minister, Ed Vaizey, who said today at a technology conference that he favors tiered Internet traffic in the country.

The UK could become the first major economy to implement such a plan, essentially going against keeping the Internet neutral for all users.

Proponents of net neutrality argue ensuring equitable access to the Internet for all users fosters freedom of speech, innovation, and free-access.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Joseph Pope (Linkedin), who works in Broadcast Media. He previously worked at MTV Networks as a Senior Sales Planning Analyst. He has BS, Information Studies and Technology from Syracuse University, and has a MBA, Finance and Media Management from Fordham University.

Did you catch Fox’s hottest new fall TV drama? If you don’t live in the Northeastern United States, you may have missed it. It wasn’t a new show, but a contract dispute over carriage fees between Fox and their distribution partner Cablevision.

During fruitless contract renewal negotiations in mid-October, News Corporation-owned Fox blacked-out their channels from Cablevision households, affecting 3.5 million homes in Long Island, Brooklyn, New York City, Connecticut and New Jersey. Cablevision risked losing angry consumers who might abandon their service for competitors while Fox had to bear substantial decreases in ratings.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Aaron Brauer-Rieke from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. For more on online consumer privacy, visit CDT’s Take Back Your Privacy page.

A sneaky application called Firesheep has been getting a lot of attention 
in privacy and security circles the last couple of weeks. It’s an urgent reminder that online services must provide proper security to their users.

Firesheep allows a network eavesdropper to hijack another user’s unencrypted session by sniffing packets and obtaining that user’s cookie. This means that, by default, accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and many other popular sites are vulnerable to tampering. This vulnerability is particularly acute on public wifi networks like those at coffee shops.

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About two years ago, Facebook launched Facebook Connect, a service that allows third party websites to leverage Facebook data by allowing their users to connect their Facebook profile with the website for deeper integration.

Thousands of third party websites and applications currently use Facebook Connect, promptly raising privacy concerns over how personal data is being handled, and what data is accessible to third parties, among other concerns.

In the past few weeks, Facebook applications like FarmVille reportedly shared confidential personal information about users obtained through Facebook Connect with numerous different partners such as advertising networks.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the FarmVille app, which has almost 60-million users on Facebook, specifically shared personal data with up to 25 third parties without user knowledge.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Harley Geiger from the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a non-profit public interest organization based in Washington, DC. CDT’s mission is to keep the Internet open, innovative, and free.

The digital signage industry has established a burgeoning offline version of the behavioral advertising that currently occurs online. Digital signage companies increasingly use facial recognition, RFID, Bluetooth, and other technologies to track consumers and tailor ads to their personal information. Several uses of these technologies have proven controversial, and some systems‚ such as one using license plate scanners, have been scrapped altogether due to privacy issues.

(What is digital signage? See my previous post, Ads with Eyes. Or, for a dramatization of digital signage gone wrong, watch the famous advertising scenes from the movie Minority Report.)

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