Privacy on the Web

In recent years, lawmakers and advocacy groups have made increased efforts to protects users’ privacy online. Here are some cases that helped stoke the debate about tracking and privacy on the Web.

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Twitter settled with the Federal Trade Commission in March over allegations that serious lapses in the company's data security allowed hackers to obtain unauthorized administrative control of Twitter, including both access to non-public user information and tweets that consumers had designated as private, and the ability to send out phony tweets from any account. Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers. The company also must establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program, which will be assessed by an independent auditor every other year for 10 years.

Stephen Haas / AP

In June 2010, a security hole in a Web service used by Apple's iPad exposed the e-mail addresses of at least 114,000 owners and unique identification numbers the devices use to communicate with the phone network.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Facebook in December 2009 said it is ending its controversial advertising program called Beacon in which the social media company shared online purchases with a user's network of friends. The announcement was part of a proposed settlement to a class action suit filed in 2007 against Facebook by users who said the service violated their privacy. In its proposed settlement, Facebook said it would set up a $9.5 million fund for a nonprofit foundation that will support online safety and privacy. How did it work? If you bought a movie ticket on Fandango, for example, that purchase would be collected for behavioral advertising unless a user opted out of that program. That information would also be broadcast to a your friends on the social networking site.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Last year Google came under fire after it disclosed that its Street Vew cars collected passwords, e-mails and other personal information wirelessly while taking photos for the maps application. In March of this year, Google received its first ever fine for improperly gathering and storing data for Street View when it was penalized by France's privacy watchdog.

Paul Sakuma / AP

A Wall Street Journal article that reported that Apple's iPhone and Google's Android regularly transmit user location data back to those companies caused an uproar among consumers in April 2011. The companies said users can opt-out of the data collection by turning off their location-based services.

Eric Risberg / AP

Microsoft's Bing search engine has been under scrutiny for privacy issues. The European Union in May 2010 told Microsoft, Google and Yahoo that their search engines don't comply with European privacy laws and told them to prove they are making user information anonymous. Federal Trade Commission Commissioner J. Thomas Rosch in a speech in February 2011 said he is "not yet prepared to fully embrace the newly proposed do-not-track mechanisms offered by Microsoft" and its rival Google. He said he is "concerned that these larger enterprises may use their technology — under the guise of privacy protection — to erect barriers to entry by which they can protect themselves from competition that may constrain their market power."

/ AP

Google in November 2010 agreed to settle a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission that it violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it rolled out its Buzz social networking application. The settlement requires Google to adopt a comprehensive privacy program and to submit to an independent privacy audit every two years for the next two decades. In the Google case, the FTC said in a release that the Internet giant "used deceptive tactics" when it launched Buzz through the accounts of its Gmail users. The company did not inform its estimated 200 million Gmail users that it would launch a social networking application using information in its e-mail accounts. Some users complained that contact lists and other data were publicly exposed and that they had a hard time opting out of the social application.

Michaela Rehle / Reuters

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in May 2010 presented new one-click options to help subscribers protect their privacy, responding to a torrent of complaints that it had become far too hard to determine and control levels of protection. Facebook faced a wave of criticism starting in December 2009, when users were caught off guard with new tools that they found confusing and that in some cases made user information more broadly available to other Web sites and anyone searching the Internet. A program introduced last month, "instant personalization," shared user information -- such as an individual's preferences and those of their friends -- with other Web sites. Privacy groups filed complaints with regulators, and thousands of users joined sites pledging to quit Facebook.

Sean Kilpatrick / AP

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Privacy on the Web

In recent years, lawmakers and advocacy groups have made increased efforts to protects users’ privacy online. Here are some cases that helped stoke the debate about tracking and privacy on the Web.

Featured Photo Galleries