Privacy

Erasing your Google search history from an Android device used to be a convoluted process, but no longer.

The new update to Google search for Android makes it so you can delete terms from your search history quickly from within the app. Here's how:

Step 1: Make sure you have the latest update to the Android Google search app installed.

Step 2: In the Google search app, long-press on any search term you want to delete.

Step 3: Press the "Yes" button to remove the term from your search history.

That's it. Now you don't … Read more

Ever wish you could hide all your tabs in Chrome or Firefox with one click?

These add-ons are great for when you're browsing the Internet at work when you're not supposed to (tsk tsk), or just trying to preserve some of your privacy when family or friends are visiting. You can set a password on the Chrome version for restoring the tabs and also set a keybind so you don't have to click the icon on your toolbar. Here's how to turn your Web browser into a tab-hiding magician:

Note: … Read more

Following criticism from customers for its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, domain registrar Go Daddy today said that it's no longer backing the legislation.

"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman in a statement. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports … Read more

Facebook has landed in some legal hot water over its use of ads that snatch the names of members of the social network to promote a product or business.

In a ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, Calif., denied Facebook's request to dismiss a lawsuit over the practice of so-called sponsored stories. Such "stories," which started popping up this past January, create an ad based on the "likes" of a member's Facebook friends.

The ads typically display the friend's name, photo, and a caption asserting that the … Read more

Several U.S. Supreme Court justices hearing arguments in a case today suggested that allowing warrantless GPS tracking of citizens' cars could lead to a Big Brother scenario of constant computerized government surveillance.

"What is the question that I think people are driving at, at least as I understand it and certainly share the concern, is that if you win this case, then there is nothing to prevent the police or the government from monitoring 24 hours a day the public movement of every citizen of the United States," Justice Stephen Breyer told a Justice Department attorney. "… Read more

Cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced AWS GovCloud, a new AWS Region designed to allow U.S. government agencies and contractors to move more sensitive workloads into the cloud by addressing their specific regulatory and compliance requirements.

Amazon's move reflects the ongoing adoption of public cloud services by government entities, including the U.S. Treasury's Recovery Accountability and Transparency board, which hosts Recovery.gov and Treasury.gov on AWS, as well as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which processes telemetry data and high-resolution images on an array of EC2 cluster compute instances.

The announcement also … Read more

A White House terrorism strategy released today says Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks aid in "advancing violent extremist narratives" and should be monitored by the government.

The 12-page strategy (PDF), which outlines ways to respond to violent extremism, promises that: "We will continue to closely monitor the important role the Internet and social-networking sites play in advancing violent extremist narratives."

President Obama said in a statement accompanying the report that the federal government will start "helping communities to better understand and protect themselves against violent extremist propaganda, especially online."

While much of the … Read more

A 19-year-old woman was arrested late last month in connection with an investigation into the theft and trashing of property from an apartment that had been rented out via a Web site rental service, San Francisco police confirmed to CNET today.

The arrest stems from an incident a San Francisco woman blogged about on June 29. The woman, who goes by EJ, wrote that she rented her apartment out to a stranger through the Airbnb site and returned home to find her place trashed and her jewelry, electronics, money, and other valuables missing. The post went viral this week, prompting … Read more

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has appeared at the Royal Courts of Justice on the first day of a High Court bid to avoid extradition.

On Tuesday, the court began hearing an appeal by Assange against a decision by Belmarsh Magistrates' Court in February to send him to Sweden for questioning about allegations of rape and sexual coercion.

His defense barrister, Ben Emerson, kicked proceedings off on Tuesday by arguing that the actions behind the allegations of sexual misconduct against Assange would not be judged offenses under British law.

Read more of "Julian Assange's extradition appeal kicks off" … Read more