The Week in Privacy – July 17, 2009

· Stolen Twitter Documents Released. Confidential business documents from the popular social media company Twitter, and leaked onto the web. The New York Times reported that “The breach raised red flags for individuals as well as businesses about the passwords used to secure information they store on the Web.”

· Belgian Court Fines Yahoo for Protecting Privacy. The privacy advocacy group Center for Democracy & Technology tells us that, “In March of this year, a Belgian court entered judgment in a criminal case against Yahoo! and fined the company for refusing to hand over user data to Belgian law enforcement authorities under Belgian law. The catch? Yahoo! has no subsidiary, employees or localized website in Belgium. The request — sent via email by a Belgian prosecutor to Yahoo!’s U.S. offices — was for user data held in the U.S. and associated with Yahoo! Mail accounts.”

· Canadian Privacy Commissioner Unhappy with Facebook. Reuters reports that “The popular social networking site Facebook is not doing enough to protect the personal information it gets from subscribers, and it gives users confusing and incomplete information about privacy matters, Canada's privacy commissioner said on Thursday.”