Stories about: FTC

The U.S. government has taken several steps to combat identity theft during the past two years, including increased prosecutions of criminals and decreased use of Social Security numbers to identify constituents, according to a report released Tuesday.

On the surface it might look like there has been some real legal progress against spam of late. But don't be fooled; these victories, real as they may be for the people involved, don't mean much to you and me.

Every single move you make online can, and often is, tracked by online marketers and advertising networks that gather and use the information for serving up targeted advertisements.

Recently, I have had some rather heated discussions with a variety of people regarding subcontractors. Specifically, I'm talking about a business entering into a transaction with a vendor in which the business' most sensitive data, including personally identifiable customer data, would be entrusted to the vendor. The issue is "what happens if the vendor decides to hand off that information to a subcontractor -- even subcontractors in another country?"

Companies are not embracing encryption as a way to protect sensitive data. According to Ponemon Institute's 2005 National Encryption Survey, only 4.2 percent of companies responding to our survey say their organizations have an enterprisewide encryption plan.

The Anti-Spyware Coalition (ASC), a group of IT companies and public interest groups, is hoping to succeed where a previous vendor organisation failed in tackling the global problem of spyware. The ASC released an agreed-upon draft definition of spyware Tuesday that it hopes will promote public comment and ultimately result in users becoming better educated about the dangers of spyware.

E-mail authentication can help fight the growing spam e-mail problem, but vendors need to come up with a single, open standard to avoid confusion and crippling costs for small ISPs (Internet service providers), participants in a U.S. government summit said Wednesday.

Privacy advocates and some lawmakers are pushing a debate over potential privacy abuses from the growing use of radio frequency identification chips as huge retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores move toward large-scale use of the technology.

Identity theft and fraud cost Americans at least $437 million in 2003.

America's new rules of privacy are coming from the Old Country. Here's how Europe is getting America to rethink privacy.

PayPal scams and others like it point to the growing problem of identity theft on the Internet.