Mark Zuckerberg has been ordered to appear in an Iranian court to answer complaints the Facebook-owned applications Instagram and WhatsApp violate individuals' privacy.

The semi-official news agency INSA quoted Ruhollah Momen Nasab, an official with the paramilitary Basij force, as saying that the judge in the south of the country had also ordered the two services be blocked. Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp. It is unlikely Mr Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, will appear in court because the US and Iran do not have an extradition treaty. Similar rulings have been issued in recent years and not been carried out. A separate Iranian court ordered last week that Instagram be blocked over privacy concerns.

Viber, a mobile messenger app that allows users to make phone calls and send text messages and images for free, also gives up plenty of free user data to anyone who wants to listen.

According to researchers from the University of New Haven (UNH) in Connecticut, US, Viber's app sends user messages in unencrypted form - including photos, videos, doodles, and location images.

All of that rich data from users is also stored unencrypted on Viber's servers, rather than being deleted immediately, and is accessible without credentials, just a link, the UNH researchers said. 

Russia's parliament has passed a bill that could see Western technology firms barred from operating if they fail to store Russian data within the country.

The legislation would require Silicon Valley companies, such as Facebook, Google’s Gmail, and Microsoft-owned Skype, to relocate Russian customer data back onto Russian soil in order to allow authorities to legally acquire and inspect data at will. Currently, Russian authorities have no powers to acquire data outside its borders, unless they submit a lawful mutual legal assistance request, which can be denied by that nation.

If you are using WhatsApp to chit-chat with your friends or relatives, then you should be careful about sharing your location with them using WhatsApp 'Location Share' feature. No doubt, WhatsApp communication between your phone and company's server is now encrypted with SSL, which means whatever you are sharing with your friends, is secured from the man-in-the-middle attacks.

But the extremely popular instant messaging service for Smartphones that delivers more than 1 billion messages per day has another serious security issue. According to Researchers at UNH Cyber Forensics Research & Education Group, WhatsApp location sharing service could expose your location to hackers or Spy Agencies.