(RNN) - More than 20 million people worldwide use the social networking site Foursquare to check in and let their friends know where they are. Unfortunately for all those people, the company does little to protect their privacy.
Foursquare is one of four companies to earn 0 stars out of 4 in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) latest review of the privacy and transparency policies of online service providers. MySpace, Skype and Verizon also failed to earn any stars, while Comcast, Yahoo, AT&T and Apple all scraped by with only 1 star.
The information is a troubling sign at a time when it seems every person and his mother are on social media websites. A bill currently making its way through Congress could go so far as allowing the government to get people's social media profile information without first securing a warrant.
"Online service providers are the guardians of some of your most intimate data - everything from your messages, to location information, to the identities of your family and friends," said EFF senior staff attorney Marcia Hofmann.
The digital rights advocacy group last week released its second-annual report on what online service providers do to protect consumers. The paper rated 18 providers, including Amazon, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Google.
When it comes to addressing consumer concerns over how information is used, some companies still lag behind. Others, such as Twitter, Facebook, Dropbox and Comcast, made progress between 2011 and 2012.
"This year, we saw a big increase in the number of companies making a public promise to their users to inform them whenever possible when the government comes knocking," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "This notice gives users the chance to fight back against government overreaches and to defend themselves if investigators want to unfairly fish around in their personal information."
Letting consumers know when their information was requested by the government is one of the four categories service providers were ranked on. The group also evaluated whether providers were open about how they dealt with government requests, whether they worked to defend privacy rights in court and whether they took that a step further and argued for online privacy rights in Congress.
Companies were given a gold star for each category they excelled in, half a star for each category they met somewhat and no stars when providers hadn't met the organization's best practices.
Dropbox showed the most improvement.
The cloud storage service earned just 1 star last year for its efforts in fighting for privacy rights in Congress. This year, it earned stars for being clearer about how it handles government data, and for notifying consumers when it gets requests for information.
Highest ranked was Sonic.net, an internet service provider based in Santa Rosa, CA. The company is the first to get gold stars in all four categories.
EFF gave a particular nod to companies that joined the Digital Due Process coalition, which fights to get Congress to address online privacy rights.
According to the group, a number of major internet companies joined the coalition this year.
"This should be a wake-up call to Congress to clarify outdated laws so there is no question that government agents need a court-ordered warrant before accessing sensitive location data, email content and documents stored in the cloud," said EFF Activism Director Rainey Reitman.
Congress has attempted to address online privacy laws a few times in the past, most notably butting against the issue during debates over for the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA).
The Act effectively died in the House of Representatives after websites blacked out in protest, bringing to light possible privacy and civil rights issues in the legislation.
The Senate is set to debate the Cybersecurity Information Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which passed the House in April. Advisors to President Barack Obama have said they will recommend he veto the bill if it makes it past the Senate.
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