Recent blog posts

Peeping tom or artist: Whose derriere is it, any way?

Does secretly photographing your neighbors inside their homes violate their privacy? The answer depends on which side of the lens you’re …
Acxiom exposed: A peek inside one of the world’s largest data brokers

Acxiom knows where you live, where you shop and what you like to do. But it's not quite the evil data monolith you might expect.
Is Do Not Track dead on arrival?

Privacy wonks and advertisers are struggling to come up with a way for consumers to say 'Don't track me, bro'. Here's …
When it comes to privacy, we’re all just pretty little liars

More than 90 percent of people lie about their personal information online, according to a survey by Customer Commons. And who can blame …
Four reasons why you should worry about online tracking (and advertising isn't one of them)

Pay no attention to the advertisers behind the curtain. The real battle over Do Not Track is bigger and scarier than which ads you're …
Who is tracking you across the Web? Even the ad industry doesn’t know

Web tracking has become so widespread that nobody knows who all these companies are or what data they're collecting.
Faking it on Foursquare: Beware of bogus beauties bearing spam

Foursquare fakes are being used to promote travel apps, and the tools to fight them are virtually nonexistent. Get ready for a GPS …
Help, I'm being stalked by the BBC (and also online advertisers)

Web trackers are indeed following you -- though probably not as closely as one BBC reporter just did to me.
Millennials do care about Internet privacy, they’re just smarter about it

An Annenberg Center survey reveals younger folks are more willing to share personal data -- but also more likely to demand something in …
Why opt out is such a cop out

Don't like being tracked? Just opt out, says the ad industry -- and then makes that process as onerous as humanly possible.

ControlBox may keep spammers and scammers at bay

Selling items online means exposing personal information to strangers and scammers. Services like ControlBox can make the Net a safer place to sell.

By Dan Tynan

Right now, ControlBox is only in use at AutoTrader, but McAuley says the company is in discussions with other online marketplaces, as well as online dating sites. Eventually, he says, ControlBox hopes to roll out a consumer-centric service that lets anyone buy or sell anything with relative anonymity – and safety.

Got a question about social media or privacy? TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan may have the answer (and if not, he’ll make something up). Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blogeSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynanwrites. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-to’s, follow ITworld onTwitter and Facebook.

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Author Dan Tynan has been writing about Internet privacy for the last 3,247 years. He wrote a book on the topic for O'Reilly Media (Computer Privacy Annoyances, now available for only $15.56 at Amazon -- order yours today) and edited a series of articles on Net privacy for PC World that were finalists for a National Magazine Award. During his spare time he is part of the dynamic duo behind eSarcasm, the not-yet-award-winning geek humor site he tends along with JR Raphael.