The US Commerce Committee met last Wednesday to discuss bills on privacy issues. Obama's administration and industry representatives, as well as federal regulators working in the sphere of consumer protection and telecommunications issues, also took part in the meeting.

Should the proposed legislation be approved, it will become the first comprehensive privacy law in US history. It will encompass the issues of e-commerce and personal information theft, and will designate the course of action  for companies if their customers’ information should be compromised. The creation of the new legislation is aimed to replace the state laws that are in force now.

One of the bills under consideration, that  prohibits companies to track consumers without giving them prior notification, has caused a lot of disagreements among the participants at the meeting. For example, Senator Pat Toomey, a member of Commerce's Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance subcommittee, claims that nowadays many people voluntarily place their personal information on social networking sites. He affirms that the new privacy rules could “break the Internet,” because “different consumers have different expectations about privacy.”

Senator Toomey calls on his colleagues to thoroughly consider the new rules before accepting them. "I'm sure no one on this committee wants to break the internet, or limit many of the popular online services that consumers can access, in order to avoid fundamentally altering the current online experience in creating these unintended consequences. I just urge that we all proceed with caution," he asserted.

However, other participants at the Wednesday hearing, including  Julie Brill, Federal Trade Commissioner, Senators John Kerry and John Rockefeller, consider that protecting Internet privacy is very important for consumers. They claim that the new legislation will not restrict the activity of online companies but  that it will make  more transparent what kind of information about users they collect, giving the users the opportunity to choose whether to share this information or not.

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There is an opinion that anonymity is an integral part of the Internet, but a lot of examples show that nowadays web anonymity is disappearing. The collective intelligence of Internet users, as well as digital fingerprints, make it possible for everyone to be identified if their sensitive information, including photos, videos and e-mails, is made  public.

Such destruction of anonymity is the result of the availability of social media services and video web hosts. Social media sites require that people provide their real identities and make their users’ private life more public that it has ever been. Susan Crawford, professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, claims that “Humans want nothing more than to connect, and the companies that are connecting us electronically want to know who’s saying what and  where. As a result, we’re more known than ever before.”

There are different attitudes towards loss of anonymity and privacy. On the one hand, this phenomenon has a lot of positive effects. For example, it can facilitate the identification of criminals, disproval of fraud and even help people become popular all over the world.

But, nevertheless, a lot of people prefer to protect their online privacy and do not want to unveil their identity. Moreover, users from countries with repressive regimes are afraid that certain private information could affect their  future life and career should it become available. That’s why they use the best VPN services to stay protected online.

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According to a new Juniper Research report, there are few smartphones and tablets properly protected from malicious software, viruses, and theft of sensitive data. Despite the high level of threats, nearly four per cent of mobile devices have additional security software installed in them, the report says.

The popularity of mobile devices is growing day by day, more and more people store their personal data on them or use them to access their e-mails, visit web sites, send important information or make online banking and shopping  transactions. That’s why it is becoming important for users to protect these devices the same way they protect desktop or laptop computers.

Juniper Research predicts an increase in security products for mobile phones and tablets. Nitin Bhas, the report’s author, claims, “We believe that the market for mobile security products will go mainstream by late 2013 as the vulnerability of data-centric mobile devices becomes more widely appreciated both in the business and consumer sectors. High-profile security alerts are likely to heighten the public’s awareness of this growing issue.”

However, a lot of people have already used different methods to protect the private data stored on their mobile devices. The majority of users prefer a VPN connection as it is one of the most reliable ways of privacy protection. There are a variety of VPN services available on mobile devices, among them are Android and iPhone VPN.  The best VPN services provide strong data encryption and minimise the opportunity of sensitive information theft.

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It is reported that the European Union is going to introduce new data protection rules. Viviane Reding, European Union justice commissioner, claimed that the new legislation would oblige all the companies to inform their customers should a case of personal information theft  occur.

However, this is not the only innovation. According to Viviane Reding, it is also planned to adopt the “right to be forgotten”, that will allow users to delete sensitive information about them from websites, and the “accountability principle”, aimed to make cloud computing usage more protected.

Nowadays, protecting internet privacy concerns almost everybody, that’s why the news caused controversy among experts. Some of them welcome it. They consider that the new rules will return customers’ trust in businesses because they will be sure that their personal information is safe, but that they will also stimulate the companies to improve their customers’ privacy protection policies. Mike Smart, solutions director, EMEA at SafeNet says that the changes “will drive the natural market mechanisms towards improving security compliance and achieving better protection of customers’ interests.”

Nevertheless, a lot of people think that these rules need to be improved before adopting them; otherwise it would be hard to implement them. Paul Davis, leader of FireEye, predicts that the new rules will likely “increase the visibility of security breaches and cause further panic about the safety of online data.” 

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Nowadays there are a lot of sites created after the example of WikiLeaks. The most popular of them are Al Jazeera Transparency Unit and SafeHouse, launched by the Wall Street Journal. There are also a lot of regional sites such as Balkanleaks, Indoleaks and Brusselsleaks.

All these web sites support publicity and freedom of speech but very often they don’t guarantee anonymity to the users providing information. For example, the Wall Street Journal promises to protect its sources but at the same time SafeHouse terms of use read the following: "We reserve the right to disclose any information about you to law enforcement authorities or to a requesting third party, without notice, in order to comply with any applicable laws and/or requests under legal process."

Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former WikiLeaks member and IT security expert, does not recommend using such sites because "they are insecure to begin with and people haven't thought about this properly before they started to run such a site." Recently Domscheit-Berg has created his own web site called OpenLeaks, that serves as a mediator between users providing information and media organizations that make it public.

However, to protect your online anonymity and privacy it’s better to use special tools that were developed to these purposes. The most popular of them are VPN and Tor. Tor isa  free software but it is not as secure as the best VPN services that you pay for. It doesn’t secure the whole session of data transmission, that’s why it is possible that your sensitive information will be compromised. VPN services, on the contrary, create a secure tunnel for the entire data transfer and minimize the risk of hackers’ attacks.

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Facebook gives people a unique opportunity to stay always in touch with their family and friends. But on the other hand, it also enhances the chances of scams set up to steal the users’ sensitive information. That’s why it is better to protect your account properly, if you don't want to become victim of identity theft. Luckily,  Facebook lets us adjust our privacy settings so we can be more protected.

According to the latest changes in Facebook's privacy policy in May 2010, the social networking site divulges your personal data including your name, profile picture, gender and networks and makes it visible to all users. You can’t hide it, but you can still protect your photos and other sensitive information from being accessible for everyone.

It is wise to restrict your private information to "Friends Only" or "Only Me" until you decide that you want it to be accessible. If you don’t want to share all the information with some of your associates, make them "limited friends" and they will be able to access only a cut-down version of your profile. Moreover,  you can always remove friends if you don’t trust them anymore.

Consider browsing Facebook with the help of a VPN connection, whilst using wireless public networks. It will protect your account from illegal access from third parties. The usage of a fast vpn connection provides  you with reliable protection and it won't cost you a lot.

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Online banking and shopping have become an inseparable part of many users’ lives.  For these purposes, many people enter  their personal data online, such as account numbers and logging details. But there is a threat  of this information being misused by hackers. That’s why it is crucial to protect your private data. Here are some tips on available solutions for protecting  your internet privacy.

One of the most reliable ways is to use a VPN connection, that secures data transmission by creating a tunnel between your device and the network that you are accessing. It is important to choose one of the best VPN services, because they provide their customers with high-end web anonymity and secure internet browsing, as well as good access speed.

It is also a good idea to have privacy software installed. It is able to prevent hackers’ attacks, it provides browser cleaning and detects malicious software. The best privacy software can defend your computer from loggers that can steal your logging information whilst you type it in. Moreover,  it protects your privacy by removing cookie trackers that are used to purloin private data.

Good quality software protects your personal data, not only during internet browsing but also when you are not online. It will warn you when you are visiting an unsafe site that could intercept your private information during a login and deletes your internet history. Besides, it will detect spyware files on your computer and neutralize them.

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Google’s Android Market mobile software shop was attacked by malicious software last week. The “DroidDream” application was infected with malicious code that could steal personal data from Android smartphones. Google has already used an inbuilt Android “kill-switch” to destroy the application, but thousands of smartphones were infiltrated.

In the current situation, every Android user should know how to protect his device. The easiest way to protect an Android smartphone is to lock it with a password. A strong password can protect your device from a big number of threats and helps to keep your data safe. After setting a password, you should adjust  the Screen Timeout options to a low option to lock the display shortly after the last touch.

Consider using the Phone Found – Owner Info app to display your contact information on the device’s locked home screen. If you lost your smartphone it could be returned to you, because someone if someone finds it  they will be able to see your information on the screen and return the device to you.

It’s also wise to select carefully the sites where you download your Android mobile applications from. You should choose only trustworthy sites, such as Google’s Android Market. In spite of the fact that it can also contain malware and other harmful apps, the risk of your device getting infected will be minimized. Also, you can download free or commercial Android antivirus apps that are available in the Android Market. Even if you don’t want to be running constantly an antivirus application,  you will be able to scan your device occasionally.

You can see more tips here: http://www.cio.com/article/675129/Android_Security_Six_Tips_to_Protect_Your_Google_Phone

Sony PlayStation Network and Qriocity, online music and video services, have not been active for almost a week. The day before yesterday Sony finally admitted that both services have been hacked and that personal information belonging to 77 million network users was stolen by an unauthorized person.

Sony informed its customers that the third party got access to their private data, such as names, addresses, birth dates, login details, password security answers and e-mail addresses. Patrick Seybold, Sony's Corporate Communications and Social Media Senior Director, also declared: “Whilst there is no evidence at this time that credit card data has been taken, we cannot rule out that possibility”. 

After the attacks, the services were turned off to prevent further  information theft. Sony engineers are currently working hard  to fix the security breaches. The company promises that some services will be restored within a week, but users will have to change their logins and passwords when the services become available.

A lot of users are not satisfied that the company didn’t inform them about the violation of their privacy immediately. Senator Richard Blumenthal claimed that “although the breach occurred nearly a week ago, Sony has not notified customers of the intrusion, or provided information that is vital to allowing individuals to protect themselves from identity theft, such as informing users whether their personal or financial information might have been compromised. Nor has Sony specified how it intends to protect these consumers.”

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