Google engineer and San Francisco partyboy Orkut Büyükkökten's wild housewarming may have been packed with internet billionaires like Sergey Brin last Saturday, but online pictures were reportedly forbidden. And yet here are snapshots of strippers and nude sculpture. More »

Why You Shouldn't Trust Facebook with Your Data: An Employee's Revelations

The abuse of private data by Facebook employees was pretty much inevitable; the simple act of amassing data tends to lead to corruption. What's sad is how lightly the social network reportedly controls its employees. More »

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg on Your Erased Privacy: 'These are the Social Norms, Now.'

This is fun. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a cameo onstage at the 2010 TechCrunch awards—or "The Crunchies"—yesterday and had a nice little chat with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. And—typically—sketchy things about privacy were noted. More »

Google Security Chief by Day, TV Magician 'Eran Raven' by Night

Maybe it should come as no surprise that Google's Director of Security is also a "mentalist" magician; few can better sell the illusion of ironclad internet security, after all, than a master of deception who fooled thousands of NBC viewers. More »

The Facebook Privacy Settings You've Lost Forever

While covering Facebook's systematic elimination of privacy, we've been deluged with questions from readers asking how to restore certain Facebook privacy protections. Sadly, many such settings appear to be lost forever. Here are the most glaring examples. More »

Blocked on Facebook: Gawker Facebook Privacy Guide

A reader sent in the attached screenshot, showing his fruitless attempt to post our guide to enhancing the privacy of your Facebook account. Apparently Facebook found that content to be "abusive." More »

The Valleywag Guide to Restoring Your Privacy on Facebook

Facebook's privacy rollback is especially terrible because it's so hard to reverse. Settings are so bewildering that even CEO Mark Zuckeberg has fiddled his two-to-three times this month. So here's a guide to re-privatizing your profile. More »

Facebook's Great Betrayal

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. More »

Facebook's CEO has urged his users to carefully review the new "privacy" settings pushed on them by his social network. He should have taken his own advice: He's apparently locked down his photos since we rifled through them last night. More »

Facebook controversially forced profile pictures into public and pushed users to share candids with the whole world. So now we're blessed with pics of the social network's young CEO shirtless, romantic, clutching a teddy bear, and looking plastered. More »

Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends

Facebook's new "privacy" settings are even more nefarious than they first appeared: The social network has formally nationalized your friends list, like some Cuban sugar plantation, and published it to people who hate you. You have no choice. More »

Facebook Begins 'Privacy' Con

It would seem our conspiracy theory is coming true: Facebook's big push to give you "more control of your information" is actually an initiative to get you to give up control of your information. Step one: Frame greed as concern. More »

Yahoo Puts a Price on Your Privacy: $10

Lawful online spying is so common, Yahoo has a detailed price list to reimburse for staff time helping authorities: $10 for basic account information, $35 for the whole email inbox, etc. China's authoritarians presumably get a discount.

Is Google's Cupcake Princess Planning to Electronically Track Her Wedding Guests?

We're still gathering details on the fairy-tale wedding Google's glamour geek Marissa Mayer is having this weekend. The latest: Guests are murmuring about some sort of tracking system that sounds as creepy as SkyNet — or Google itself. More »

Google CEO: Secrets Are for Filthy People

Eric Schmidt suggests you alter your scandalous behavior before you complain about his company invading your privacy. That's what the Google CEO told Maria Bartiromo during CNBC's big Google special last night, an extraordinary pronouncement for such a secretive guy. More »

Someone Stop Facebook's Creepy Predators, Facebook Executive Implores

By day, Chris Kelly extols the virtues of Facebook, where he serves as chief privacy officer. By night, as candidate for California attorney general, Kelly warns of Facebook's "online predators," and says government must "keep people safe" Neat trick. More »

Facebook's New 'Privacy' Scheme Smells Like an Anti-Privacy Plot

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued an open letter to his 350+ million users; you probably saw it this morning when logging in. Facebook will kill regional networks like "New York." Why? To trick you. More »

Google Search Box Suggestions Allow Us to Peer into the Internet's Dark, Disturbing Id

There are things you don't tell your husband. There are things you don't tell your therapist. But virtually everything can go into Google's search box — for Google to re-broadcast to the world, via its "suggestion" feature. More »

People Begging Google to Be Their Stalker

Google said it can now keep a detailed list of everywhere you go, play your trips back like movies and generate "alerts" for unusual movements. Who wants this? The CIA? Nope: ordinary modern humans are asking to be tracked. Insane. More »

Big Google Is Watching: Meet Your Creepy Google Dossier (and Mine)

Today Google rolled out the "Google Dashboard," which is supposed to "protect your privacy" by offering control panels for the company's many products. But, really, it just scares the crap out of you. Google knows all. More »