Just two days after launching its Buzz social networking tools, Google last night said it has tweaked the technology address early privacy concerns.

Google last night disclosed in a blog post that the quick updates makes it easier for users to block access to their pages and eases the path to finding two privacy features.

“We’ve had plenty of feature requests, and some direct feedback,” wrote Todd Jackson, a product manager for Gmail and Google Buzz, in the blog post. “In particular there’s been concern from some people who thought their contacts were being made public without their knowledge (in particular the lists of people they follow, and the people following them). In addition, others felt they had too little control over who could follow them and were upset that they lacked the ability to block people who didn’t yet have public profiles from following them.”

Google earlier this week threw its hat into the social networking ring when it announced new Gmail features designed to make the e-mail service more of a social networking hub. Google Buzz is the company’s attempt to make the flood of social posts, pictures and video easier to weed through, and to make it easier to find important information.

ATHENS, Greece -  A privacy watchdog lifted its objections Monday to a Greek Web site publishing panoramic street-level images online, making a similar decision in favor of Google’s Street View service more likely.
Greece’s Data Protection Authority, or DPA, said it was satisfied by assurances given by operators of the Greek Internet site [...]

Privacy is no longer a social norm, according to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg commenting on the rise of social networking

U.S. judges questioned the FCC’s authority to punish Comcast Corp for blocking online file-sharing services on Friday in a case that could wind up curbing the regulators’ campaign for a free and open Internet.

Facebook’s privacy pullback isn’t just outrageous; it’s a landmark turning point for the social network. Facebook has blundered before, but the latest changes are far more calculated. The company has, in short, turned evil.

Hackers have released an application designed to thwart a Microsoft-packaged forensic toolkit used by law enforcement agencies to examine a suspect’s hard drive during a raid.
The hacker tool, dubbed DECAF, is designed to counteract the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, aka COFEE. The latter is a suite of 150 bundled, off-the-shelf forensic tools that run [...]

The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable. This [...]

See this video, and do some research.
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Over the past week, Facebook has been nudging its users – first gently, then firmly – to review and update their privacy settings.
You may have procrastinated by hitting “skip for now,” but Facebook eventually took away that button and forced you to update your settings before continuing to use the site.
After [...]

Here in the states, T-Mobile has been no stranger to screw-ups, but we’d always just figured that their UK counterparts were stand-up guys.
After all, they’re British – as we all know, every one from that side of the pond is charming, affable, and rocks a bloody good accent.
Unfortunately, it looks like [...]