Software companies with their glitches and sanctioned penalties by FTC – Part 2

However, Facebook ultimately came to terms with regulatory authority with the condition that they will issue “prominent notice” and first obtain consumers’ “express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established.”

Google Street View

FCC recently wound up its scrutiny of Google Street View, another in a series of examples where governments and privacy advocates clashed heads with tech companies over their propensity to overstep certain — perhaps, ill-defined — red lines governing user privacy and information on the Internet.

But Google’s not the only offender. Though the names change, the song remains the same over the last decade and a half. Indeed, there has been no shortage of “mistakes” to remind us that Internet privacy remains a work in progress — as the following slides make painfully clear.

Twitter fails to secure user information

The fastest social media network was issued a sentence of extended probation of 20 years. The charges came this year when FTC confirmed that the network failed to secure its users’ private information.

The company, according to FTC, was “misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of non-public consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to non-public information and honour the privacy choices made by consumers.”

Hotmail’s software faux pas

In 1999, Microsoft Hotmail suffered a glitch which made private e-mail accounts available to anyone with a Web browser. Microsoft was forced to black out most of the site, leaving millions of users without access. This was about 12 hours after the company was notified of the security hole.

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Posted by Usman Khalid on May 5 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.