Five years after advocates came up with an easy way to let you browse the Web with just a little privacy, the Do Not Track system is in tatters and that pair of boots you looked at online last month is still stalking you from website to website.

Back in December, Facebook started testing auto-playing video ads, where video advertisements start playing in your feed without you having to click or tap play. Today, they are introducing those ads to users across Facebook.

At this point, it's unclear if there's a way to opt out of auto-playing video ads, though if you're on a desktop browser, you may be able to get rid of them with something like AdBlock.

During an investor call today (link via Ars), Comcast executive VP David Cohen said that he predicts bandwidth caps (or, as ISPs prefer to put it, “usage-based billing”) to be rolled out network-wide within the next 5 years or so.

Once 4K streaming comes into the mix in a few years and Netflix/Amazon/et al. get more stuff worth watching, those caps are gonna burn up quick.

Think you hate your Internet service provider now? Pretty much all the top ISPs in the country just told the Federal Communications Commission that if they face extra regulation, they will stop investing as much as they do today in network upgrades, and they will have to stop being so innovative.

Consumer advocates say common carrier status is needed for the FCC to impose strong network neutrality rules on Internet service providers. Such rules would force ISPs to treat all third-party Web services equally, not degrading competing services or speeding up Web services in exchange for payment.

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to vote for a proposal on May 15th to scrap Net Neutrality. Instead of all sites being given fair and equal access to consumers, this proposal will allow for your ISP to create special internet speed lanes for ultra-rich corporations, and force their own customers wanting to access your site into an internet traffic jam lane that's slower. The bonehead responsible for this idiotic and insane proposal is no less than the chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, a cable industry hand-picked lobbyist.

There are ways of saving snaps both within and without the app, including screenshots and opening messages in third-party apps. The FTC also faulted Snapchat for harvesting its users' contact information from their address books without disclosing the activity.

Ad-free social network App.net has clawed enough cash from subscription revenues to let it be "profitable and self-sustaining," – albeit without any employees.

"The bad news is that the renewal rate was not high enough for us to have sufficient budget for full-time employees. After carefully considering a few different options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried employees, including founders."

Snapchat, in keeping with the great tradition of social-networking applications, continues expanding its capabilities. The app that initially gave users the ability to share silly photos that would automatically be deleted, has expanded into chat. Those chats are, of course, also quickly deleted.

The problem is PGP is pretty hard to use. That’s why Krohn and Chris Coyne–who previously founded study guide company SparkNotes and online dating service OK Cupid–launched Keybase, a startup that aims to make PGP easier for average users.

Also, PGP can’t completely protect e-mail. Metadata—such as who sent a particular message and when–can’t be encrypted. There are many new projects meant to address the short comings of e-mail, including the “Off the Record” plugin for instant message clients and the “next generation” messaging protocol Dark Mail, which is being developed in part by PGP creator Phil Zimmerman.

The company reported that its daily active users rose from 27 million in the last quarter of 2013 to 28 million this quarter. But when compared to the first quarter of 2013, Zynga had 53 million daily active users—which means the company has lost about half of its most active players in a year.