In this age of free web services, ads have become the number one source of revenue. However, these ads have evolved. They are no longer static and but have been made to become smarter (or creepier) so that said service can learn more about your behavior, even outside the site. While the need for revenue is understandable, retargeting and behavioral analysis of a person’s web browsing habits even...

Last Friday, Microsoft announced that it had received around 418  requests to disclose information by the Indian Government in 2012. There were 594 user accounts that were specified in this request. This is the first time that the company has revealed such data. It plans to regularly release such data in its ‘Law Enforcement Requests Report’ to keep the service transparent. Microsoft released...

Facebook has recently announced through official channels that the organization has sustained a sophisticated hacker attack. There has been no evidence till now of user data compromise. The attack was executed when some of the company officials visited a mobile developer website that had malicious software that compromised their systems. There was no apparent attempt to access user data and this attack...

Microsoft attacked Google earlier in the week alleging that Google’s service Gmail is not really as personal and private as the company proclaims. It said that every mail that you and receive is read by the company and according to the data or conversation, appropriate advertisements are placed on the email service for free customers. Microsoft urged the users to be aware about this breach of privacy...

Digital marketing thrives because of data; digital marketing is measurable and one can customize the advertising strategies based on user data. There are several tools available for the advertisers to track user behavior online. A recent survey report shows that consumers are choosing to stay invisible in order to protect personal data online. This might create a “data blackhole” making things...

Foursquare, the frontrunner in location apps, announced changes to its privacy policies in the new year. These new updates will result in user’s full names being displayed across the service instead of the previous ‘name+initial of surname’. In addition to this, the company is also planning to share more of its user data with businesses that users frequent. The company announced this in an email...

The advent of the Internet as the go-to place for e-commerce, social networking, professional work etc. has resulted is people sharing a lot of personal information online willingly or unwittingly. As a rule, most of the savvy Internet users have a decent knowledge of the privacy issues on the Internet. Most of the people who have jumped onto the Internet since the increase in its accessibility are...

Facebook is making serious attempts to weed out fake accounts and profiles so as to prevent the misuse of identities. Facebook India Business Manager, Pawan Kumar, said that the social media giant is focused on weeding out fake profiles. He said that efforts are being made to verify dubious accounts by asking the person responsible for the account to identify themselves. Facebook identifies a ‘fake’...

Facebook is currently testing & will soon deploy its own customized ad-exchange. This ad-exchange will not only study the user’s behavior on its own site, but will also monitor other sites the user visits for ultra-targeted advertising. How does the Ad-Exchange work? Facebook is currently testing 8 third party Demand Side Platforms (DSP). When a user visits a website with an intent to purchase,...

In today’s age of Social Media having entered all parts of our personal and work life, some people feel that we may be over-sharing. For example publicly sharing your location on FourSquare or sharing our daily routine on Twitter. The micro-blogging service wants to raise the standards of Privacy Settings so that the average user does not accidentally let out information publicly. Tweeples...