Cellphone tracking services: Friend finder or Big Brother?

Loopt, has more than 1 million users and is one of the most popular services to allow people to track their friends via their smart phones. And with more cellphones now equipped with GPS, other services such as Google Latitude are collecting location data from scores of users and broadcasting that information through phone networks or the Internet.

Such tracking services offer a great way for people stay connected – and can be a boon for parents – but their proliferation also has privacy advocates biting their nails. As companies forge into largely uncharted areas of tracking and recording customer locations, many worry that consumers won’t be able to ensure that their private information – such as their whereabouts on a given day – is being safeguarded, especially from advertisers.

“How are we going to get all the benefits that come from doing geo-location without sacrificing people’s privacy?” asks Lauren Gelman, executive director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society (CIS).

Facebook's privacy options

The privacy tools are there, but the challenge is getting enthusiastic Facebookers to use them.

Facebook users -- and their managers -- who are concerned about keeping control of their information should get themselves over to the social network's Privacy Settings page without delay.

While Facebook has recently revamped its interface and provided new ways for users to filter information, the new options make it easier to control what you see from others, not what you reveal to them. The ways you control outgoing information -- the news you "publish," in new Facebook-speak -- haven't changed.

You get to them from the Settings --> Privacy Settings menu, which presents choices for Profile (who can see your personal and contact information, including videos and photographs you're tagged in); Search (what will be visible to Facebook's Search function); News Feeds and Wall (which of your posts and comments can be seen by other people); and Applications (what information will be available to Facebook applications you add).

Boom time for cybercrime

The economy and online social networks are the latest fodder for scams

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Wisconsin court upholds GPS tracking by police

Wisconsin police can attach GPS to cars to secrely track anybody's movements without obtaining search warrants, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

However, the District 4 Court of Appeals said it was "more than a little troubled" by that conclusion and asked Wisconsin lawmakers to regulate GPS use to protect against abuse by police and private individuals.

As the law currently stands, the court said police can mount GPS on cars to track people without violating their constitutional rights -- even if the drivers aren't suspects.

Officers do not need to get warrants beforehand because GPS tracking does not involve a search or a seizure, Judge Paul Lundsten wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel based in Madison.

Employers Watching Workers Online Spurs Privacy Debate

By now, many employees are uncomfortably aware that their every keystroke at work, from email on office computers to text messages on company phones, can be monitored legally by their employers.

What employees typically don't expect is for the company to spy on them while on password-protected sites using nonwork computers. But even that privacy could be in jeopardy.

A case brewing in federal court in New Jersey pits bosses against two employees who were complaining about their workplace on an invite-only discussion group on MySpace.com, a social-networking site owned by News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. The case tests whether a supervisor who managed to log into the forum -- and then fired employees who badmouthed supervisors and customers there -- had the right to do so.