News & Commentary

We have written numerous posts discussing how companies want to know who you are, what you do, and where you go online because this information can translate into big advertising revenue. Your photos may be the new frontier.

Charter Communications, one of the nation's largest cable Internet providers, plans to begin monitoring the online activities of its high- speed Internet customers and then sell the data for targeted advertising.

A coalition of privacy and consumer organizations from California to Washington, D.C. have sent a letter today urging Google to post a prominent link on its homepage to its privacy policy in accordance with the California Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA) and the widespread practice of commercial web sites.

The blogosphere has been bubbling over the past few weeks over the subject of laptop searches and seizures at international borders. The source of the buzz? A couple of recent court cases.

A federal grand jury on Thursday issued an indictment against a Missouri woman accused of creating a fake MySpace page to bully a 13-year old girl who later committed suicide. The high profile, and emotionally charged case, has drawn media attention from around the world.

The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand.

The ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation can today reveal their participation in a long fight with the FBI over free speech and government-imposed secrecy.

The government uses National Security Letters (NSLs) to demand access to sensitive records in the custody of Internet service providers, financial institutions, credit reporting agencies, and many other kinds of organizations. In almost all cases, recipients of the NSLs are served with gag orders that prohibit them from disclosing that they have received the letters.

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