The internet has turned into a massive surveillance tool. We're constantly monitored on the internet by hundreds of companies -- both familiar and unfamiliar. Everything we do there is recorded, collected, and collated – sometimes by corporations wanting to sell us stuff and sometimes by governments wanting to keep an eye on us. [...]

You'd think that your privacy settings would keep random strangers from learning everything about you, but it only keeps random strangers who don't pay for the privilege – or don't work for the government and have the ability to demand the data. Power is what matters here: you'll be able to keep the powerless from invading your privacy, but you'll have no ability to prevent the powerful from doing it again and again. [...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/may/16/internet-of-things-priv...

Intellectual property (IP) should be left out of current trade negotiations with the U.S. and a deal should not be reached in secret, European civil liberties representatives advised the European Commission's trade department Wednesday. [...]

Meanwhile, Joe McNamee of EDRi argued that the Commission would be shooting itself in the foot by resisting transparency, as much of the public would then automatically assume it had something to hide, even if 70 percent of the proposals were good. "I don't see the value of non-transparency. In fact it could kill TTIP just as effectively as it killed ACTA," said McNamee. [...]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2038802/specter-of-acta-hangs-over-ttip-n...

France's controversial three strikes copyright rules could be going the way of its aristocracy's heads. [...]

Protest group La Quadrature du Net called the announcement of the death of Hadopi "misleading".

"The announcement of the suppression of the Hadopi is misleading: its missions are redistributed to other entities (CSA), with the exception of the never-applied internet cut-off, and even completed by new monitoring or repressive competence. It hides the pursuit of Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-sharing policies," said Philippe Aigrain, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net. [...]

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2267879/france-could-drop-three...

Reporters at Bloomberg News were trained to use a function on the company’s financial data terminals that allowed them to view subscribers’ contact information and, in some cases, monitor login activity in order to advance news coverage, more than half a dozen former employees said. [...]

The company acknowledged that at least one reporter had gained access to information on Goldman Sachs after the bank complained to the company last month. On Sunday, Ty Trippet, a Bloomberg spokesman, said that “reporters would not have been trained to improperly use any client data.” [...]

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/business/media/bloomberg-admits-termi...