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A $3 million settlement by Playdom, the Disney social games studio, sends a pretty clear message that the U.S. Child Online Privacy Protection Act isn't messing around. Violate it, and it will be expensive. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5801875&view=rss&microfeed=true "I was disappointed that Sony did not proactively notify my office...It seems to me that it's time to begin imposing fines - significant, attention-getting fines - on companies when poor privacy and security practices lead to breaches.'' [The Vancouver Sun] More »
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Caught in the blast of Sony's lawsuit against the man who jailbroke the PlayStation 3 is anyone who may have visited his website, under a court order that set off privacy advocates and further angered hackers. More »
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Speaking at an investor's conference on Thursday, a Microsoft executive offered that Kinect not only knows how many are in the room when an ad's shown, but what kind of team colors they might be wearing. Uh-oh. More »
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Microsoft's new Kinect device will put an advanced sensor array in the living room of millions of people, an Internet-connected set of machine ears and eyes capable of capturing voice, recognizing faces and tracking body movement. More »
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Dozens of Facebook applications, including Zynga's wildly popular casual games FarmVille, Mafia Wars and FrontierVille, transmit user data in violation of the social network's privacy settings, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. More »
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Calling it a "truly disappointing" mistake, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board has apologized directly to those whose email addresses it exposed in a reply concerning Blizzard's now-abandoned plans to require forum members to use their real names. More »
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Sometimes irony can be delicious. In this case, it's a little bit tragic, with the ESRB publicly releasing the email addresses of people who had written to the board to protest...the revelation of private information. More »
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How do you stem the tide of a forum flooded with flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness? Just do what Blizzard is about to do in the official forums for StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Display posters' real names. More »
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We've received a handful of messages from upset gamers today who had their personal e-mails exposed to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of recipients of a customer service update from Activision on Guitar Hero III issues. In just one of the e-mails that was forwarded to us, an impressive 860 recipient e-mail addresses were listed in the mail's 'To' field, ensuring that all who received updates on their replacement discs for the Wii version of Guitar Hero III had access to the e-mail addresses of the rest. More »
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Summer vacation! And if you lived in China, you'd jet over to the local internet cafe and play some MMO until your eyes bled. Well, you would have if the Chinese government weren't such a big wet blanket. The country's MInistry of Culture is kicking off a campaign to monitor internet cafes from July 1st to September 30th this year. This crackdown will keep kids out of the cafes and on the street, where they can do safe things like play in traffic. Middle school teachers are being hired to serve as internet cafe supervisors. School's out? Yeah, right. Brian Ashcraft More »
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Don't like people watching you play yer DS? Get "privacy screens" and never be bothered by voyeurs again. For a couple years, Japanese companies have been selling this type of product for keitais, but not handhelds. More »
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It looks like the credit card is increasingly becoming the age checker of choice for video game publishers. I received an email this morning from a SOCOM 3 fan who points out that Sony is requiring gamers to enter a credit card number to start a friends list or join or create a clan. This is most likely being done to weed-out underage players since the game is rated M for mature. Of course it will also weed out those who don't have the financial posterity to own a credit card or the desire to commit economic hari-kari via bloated interest rates and annual fees. And don't even get me started on the privacy issued. I understand the need for age checking, and certainly getting someone to enter their date of birth doesn't swing it, but there's got to be a better way then credit cards. Just don't ask me what it is. More »
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