Be careful what you type online, the government is watching.
I'm Bridget Carey, and this is your CNET Update.
There is an uproar about how much data the government is collecting about citizens online.
Recent reports from the Washington Post and the Guardian have brought to light how greatly our national surveillance is expanding, and the broad power the U.S. government has to snoop into online conversations and collect data from cell phone
companies.
At the center of this is a government program called PRISM, which was created in 2007, but we just learned about it now.
The government has been searching through data from major tech companies, including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple.
They're gathering all sorts of things like video, e-mails, and connection logs.
PRISM is designed to collect data on foreigners to track down potential terrorist communications.
But it's not just for the U.S. A security agency for the United Kingdom also has been using
all that PRISM data.
This is on top of the discovery that the NSA is collecting information from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint.
As these governments stitch together all of these bits of data from different sources, they can create profiles of individuals.
It's calling up questions of ethics and legality, and there's demand for more transparency about the program and interpretation of these broadly-worded laws.
So, if that story wasn't enough to bum you out, I got bad news about the Xbox 1. Microsoft has shared a few
more details about the restrictions it is putting on used games.
If you want to loan a game to your friend, it better be a really good friend because you're gonna only loan a game once to one other Xbox user.
Microsoft will be tracking when you use a game with your Xbox account, so it's only allowing a game to be lent out once to one of your friends as long as that friend has been on your friend's list for at least 30 days.
And it gets worse.
You need to have an internet connection to play your Xbox because they verify all of this by checking in with
their servers.
I hope your internet service never goes down because you could only play offline for 24 hours after that.
If your internet is still not connected, you can't play any games.
And there are still more questions Microsoft will have to answer about how it will work to buy a used game or if it's even possible to rent games anymore.
And switching gears, to Apple.
Right before the big developers conference, Apple has made a deal with the Sony music label for its streaming radio service.
CNET has learned that Apple also has deals with
Universal and Warner.
Pandora is about to get some new competition soon.
That's your Tech News Update.
You can find more details on these stories at CNET.com/update.
From our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey.
