As part of that privacy policy refresh, WhatsApp also removed a passage about opting out of sharing certain data with Facebook: "If you are an existing user, you can choose not to have your WhatsApp account information shared with Facebook to improve your Facebook ads and products experiences.".

In a year where some in Big Tech pledged support for the activists demanding police reform, they still sold devices and furnished apps that allow government access to far more intimate data from far more people than traditional warrants and police methods would allow.

Late last week, Facebook bought full-page ads in the leading national dailies contending that Apple’s new policy, which will require apps running on iOS to allow users to opt out of tracking beginning early next year, will hurt small businesses.

And while providing data for the labels is now mandatory in the iOS and macOS App Stores, it's also the developer's job to provide factual information and revise it over time.

The bipartisan coalition, led by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, alleges that Facebook achieved its dominance through a years-long strategy of anticompetitive tactics, including its acquisitions of budding rivals like Instagram and WhatsApp. As it built up that dominant position, the suit argues, it began offering users a worse and worse privacy experience.

There are times when you will want to hand your unlocked phone to the people around you—showing photos to friends, for instance, or giving it to your kids to play on—and you may want to consider putting some extra locks on the apps you want to be more secure.

The US Military Buys Location Data From a Popular Muslim Prayer AppFor years, shadowy companies have been buying and selling your location data based on what apps you use.

Russian and North Korean Hackers Hit Covid-19 Vaccine FirmsAuthorities have warned for months that public health organizations and vaccine developers would be high-value targets for state-sponsored hacking groups .

We took a closer look at Berserk Bear, the Russian hacking group that for years has broken into critical US infrastructure targets—and more recently, election-adjacent systems—without ever actually causing serious mayhem.

Earlier this week, Dutch security researcher Victor Gevers told De Volkskrant that he had recently accessed Donald Trump's Twitter account simply by guessing the password: maga2020!A few days later, he says, he saw that Trump's Twitter account had added two-factor authentication, freezing him out.

The more important question to ask when a major company like Barnes and Noble gets hacked—which it did, according to an email sent to customers this week—is how much the hackers actually got away with.

But public health requires the public’s consent: The technologies that will help us get past Covid-19 are only as valuable as the number of people who use them.

The only time the company knows what you're typing on Gboard is when you use the app to submit a Google search or input other data to the company's services that it would see from any keyboard.

The idea is to create a technical specification that qualifies as a universal opt-out under the CCPA, so that exercising rights under the law would flip from being hopelessly complex to extremely easy.“This would provide a key component that’s called for in the California law, which is a simple way for consumers to invoke their right without having to go to each website and find the button,” said Ashkan Soltani, a privacy researcher who helped lead the effort.

(The consent preferences on WIRED are controlled by parent company Condé Nast).With the Do Not Tracking setting in browsers becoming increasingly useless , web browsers are increasingly flexing their privacy credentials Apple’s Safari browser has boosted its anti-tracking tech and Firefox has blocked trackers by default since 2018.Google Chrome is also planning on getting rid of third-party cookies.

When state senator Bob Hertzberg learned that an ambitious privacy initiative had gotten enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in California, he knew he had to act quickly.

However, it’s worth stressing that the content of the messages you send isn’t shared, as Facebook doesn’t have access to them due to WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption .WhatsApp collects more information about you than it shares with Facebook.

While Gmail doesn’t scan the content of your emails to collect information for its advertising machines, data from your Google account is used to serve ads in your Gmail inbox.

Over the past few days, a half-dozen viewings of Twitch’s recently started live channels in the Just Chatting section have all turned up at least one apparent child within the top five or 10 entries.

And we took a fresh look at an old debate: whether TikTok actually poses a security threat to the US.Russian hackers are targeting Covid-19 vaccine research .

On Monday, Indian regulators enacted a hard ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese applications, citing concerns over national security triggered by radical privacy violations that these apps committed against Indian users.Bangorlol, who apparently reverse-engineered the app, suggested that TikTok collects troves of data on its users.

Ramaswamy's startup company, Neeva, is that "something different"—and though it, too, is a search engine, it seeks to sidestep some of Google's problems by avoiding the ads altogether.

The law enforcement operation lasted more than three months and was made possible through police access to a secure communications platform called EncroChat, which offered encrypted messaging, disappearing messages, and an emergency data wiping feature.

You don't have to wait for macOS Big Sur to drop to get a lot of these upcoming features though—both Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have similar features, or they can with the help of a third-party extension.

Newly formed Google accounts will auto-delete activity and location every 18 months by default.Auto-delete features also don't apply to services explicitly meant for long-term data storage, like Gmail, Google Drive, and Photos.

While Google has taken proactive steps in the last year or so to improve Chrome extension security , the incident shows that it still has a ways to go.79 Netgear Devices All Have the Same Zero Day VulnerabilityAnother day, another router bug.

Today, Ayyadurai is one of the most dangerous vectors of health disinformation, racking up millions of engagements on posts that rail against vaccinations, claim Anthony Fauci is a member of the “deep state,” and instruct followers to point blow dryers down their throats to kill the coronavirus.

One potential way to help fix that problem: Give them privacy "nutrition" labels that let customers know exactly how safe a given smart speaker or connected toothbrush is.

Google's Chrome, too, is adding privacy and security features , like enhanced "safe browsing" designed to warn users about phishing sites, and a password manager that automatically checks your passwords against collections of leaked user credentials.

Whether you want your free time back or don’t like your personal info scattered about on the internet, you may be considering deactivating some accounts.We've also added TikTok. You’ve had your Facebook account for ages, and in that time maybe you’ve posted a little too much personal information.