online

Back in '80s when the Internet more closely resembled a series of tubes, the state of Rhode Island passed a law making it illegal to lie online. And until this week, this law was still in effect, according to the Associated Press.

That's right, in Rhode Island someone could actually be slapped with a misdemeanor charge, fined up to $500, and sentenced up to a year in prison for lying about their age on an online dating site, fibbing on Facebook about how many people were at a house party, or pumping up their resume on LinkedIn.

According to … Read more

If you have a teen in the home, beware: there's a good chance he or she is hiding what they're doing on the Web.

According to security firm McAfee, a whopping 70 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 have admitted to hiding their online activities from parents. McAfee found that 43 percent of the surveyed teens access simulated violence on the Web, while 32 percent view nude content or pornography.

Interestingly, parents don't necessarily think that their children are doing anything wrong on the Web. In fact, McAfee, which surveyed a total of 2,017 people, … Read more

Update 2:20 p.m. PT: Since this story was initially published, the fund for Karen Klein has skyrocketed. It is now well past $300,000 and continues to grow. The fundraiser is set to continue for a month.

(CBS News) Karen Klein wasn't having the best of days when she was recently bullied by a bus full of students from Greece, N.Y.

The middle school students teased, taunted and threatened the 68-year-old school bus monitor. The incident was caught on video, posted on YouTube, and instantly went viral -- outraging many viewers.

The students, between ages 12 … Read more

Social networks catering to adolescents have a serious trust issue -- and justifiably so.

Location-based flirting app Skout and teen social-networking game Habbo were hit by reports that adults allegedly used their services to sexually prey on underage users, causing both sites to temporarily restrict access this week.

The incidents serve as a reminder of the potential risks that arise when a minor logs on to any social network, an issue that has gotten even more scrutiny with Facebook looking to possibly open its doors to users under 13. More importantly, it reinforces the notion that no network is truly … Read more

Habbo, an online community targeted at teens, is under fire for being unable to stop users from engaging in sexually explicit virtual interactions or using derogatory language, according to a post from online magazine The Kernel.

The controversy, which sent the site into a "global mute" that stopped users from communicating, was sparked by a news broadcast in the U.K.'s Channel 4 News about "shocking lapses in moderation of a hugely popular online game used by young teenagers, including interactions of an explicit sexual nature."

The incident has caused one of Habbo's top … Read more

Amazon's Jeff Barr noted this morning that its S3 online storage service reached 1 trillion objects, or files, last week, impressive growth for a service that launched in 2006.

Barr writes on the company's Amazon Web Services blog:

That's 142 objects for every person on Planet Earth or 3.3 objects for every star in our galaxy. If you could count one object per second it would take you 31,710 years to count them all.

He added that the object count has been growing by up to 3.5 billion objects in a single day, or … Read more

NEW YORK -- No one hooted or jeered when Cary Sherman took the stage today at the Personal Democracy Forum 2012.

That's worth noting, because Sherman is CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group of the top four recording companies, and because the forum crowd was full of politically minded techies that -- it's safe to say -- feel some antipathy for the RIAA. OK, some of these people downright hate the RIAA.

All you have to do to measure the degree of animosity for the RIAA is read the user comments of any … Read more

The two lawmakers who spearheaded a protest in January against controversial antipiracy legislation said today that they want the country to adopt an Internet Bill of Rights.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said today at the Personal Democracy Forum 2012 in New York that the country needs a way to guarantee citizens their Internet freedoms.

"What we need is a way to measure how we're going to ensure the voice of [Internet] networks is protected," Wyden said during an interview the two lawmakers gave to Andrew Rasiej, an entrepreneur and founder of the … Read more

Google is opening up its Google Trusted Stores program -- which comes with the company's backing and an optional satisfaction guarantee for customers -- to any U.S merchant, the search giant turned marketplace announced today.

Then program, which gives out badges and customer service scorecards to merchants, lets Google assure customers that when they shop online, Google's got their back.

"We help customers feel confident, knowing that they're going to be having a great experience and knowing that Google stands behind them if anything goes wrong," said Tom Fallows, Google Shopping's group product … Read more