Transparency as a user experience problem
By: Ed Felten | Apr 2, 2012 12:27PM
One of the top-level recommendations of the FTC privacy report was greater transparency about the data practices of companies and technologies. The report pointed to mobile apps as especially needing better transparency. Indeed, a previous FTC staff report on mobile apps for kids found that hardly any of the apps that were studied offered full privacy disclosures.
RockYou, the FTC, and Little Bobby Tables
By: Ed Felten | Mar 27, 2012 11:10AM
Today the FTC announced that it has settled a complaint against RockYou, on charges that the company’s inadequate security led to a breach of consumer data, and that the company collected personal information from children it knew to be under 13 without parental consent.
Tech highlights of the FTC privacy report
By: Ed Felten | Mar 26, 2012 11:00AM
Today the FTC is releasing a major report on privacy. Privacy geeks will read the whole thing–and should, because it represents a lot of careful thinking by folks in the agency.
But if you’re a techie who doesn’t have time to read it all, let me point you to a few of the parts you’ll probably find most interesting.
By: Ed Felten | Mar 23, 2012 7:00AM
Welcome! I’m Ed Felten, Chief Technologist at the FTC. Let me introduce you to this blog.
As the nation’s consumer protection agency, the FTC works on technology issues every day. You’ll see lots of discussion of technology in our reports, cases, speeches and testimonies, not to mention the consumer and business education pieces we publish. But we haven’t had a venue for speaking, more directly and less formally, to the technically minded public about tech issues. That’s what this blog is for.
