Glyn Moody is a freelance journalist who writes and speaks about privacy, surveillance, digital rights, open source, copyright, patents and general policy issues involving digital technology. He started covering the business use of the Internet in 1994, and wrote the first mainstream feature about Linux, which appeared in Wired in August 1997. His book, "Rebel Code," is the first and only detailed history of the rise of open source, while his subsequent work, "The Digital Code of Life," explores bioinformatics - the intersection of computing with genomics.
Amazon was founded almost exactly 25 years ago. Initially it sold books, and people saw it as an interesting early example of e-commerce, but probably assumed that it would remain…
Last October, Privacy News Online wrote about an ambitious project from Google's sister company, Sidewalk Labs. It aims to take the idea of a "smart city" to the next level,…
Privacy News Online noted back in February a growing disquiet at the huge amounts of personal information that sites like Facebook and Google routinely gather about us, and how it…
Facebook has been appearing on this blog with increasing frequency. In one way, that's natural. A social network, by definition, is about people and their personal information, and so is…
Customer service is a crucial part of many businesses, so it comes as no surprise that digital technologies are increasingly being applied to this field. By its very nature, a…
A previous post discussed what has happened in the world of the GDPR during its first year. Although only a few rulings have been handed down, there are many legal…
A year ago, arguably the most important event in the recent history of privacy occurred: the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) started to be enforced. To mark that anniversary…
Readers of this blog know that a VPN is an indispensable tool for today's digital world. VPNs address a key part of the challenge of staying safe online. They protect…
The next-generation of mobile communications, 5G, is currently a hot topic in two very different domains: technology – and politics. The latter is because of President Trump's attempts to shut…
Full-body scanners are now a routine sight at airports. Most people are resigned to these virtual strip-searches, despite the obviously intrusive nature of appearing naked to the machines' operators. But…