Yahoo pledges to encrypt all data by end of March

PRIVACYYahoo plans encryptionYahoo is expanding its efforts to protect its users' online activities from prying eyes by encrypting all the communications and other information flowing into the Internet company's data centers around the world. The commitment announced Monday by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer follows a recent Washington Post report that the National Security Agency has been hacking into the communications lines of the data centers run by Yahoo and Google to intercept information about what people do and say online. In an open letter published by the Daily Mail, Schmidt said a team of 200 Google staffers have been working with a new technology to prevent links to child porn from appearing on the company's search engine. PRIVACY$17 million deal for states, D.C.Google will pay $17 million to 37 states and the District of Columbia to settle claims it violated consumer privacy by placing unauthorized cookies on computers using certain Apple Safari Web browsers in 2011 and 2012.