Some of the biggest names in mobile have been named in a new class-action lawsuit stemming from the Carrier IQ revelation that rocked the mobile privacy world last month.

The Carrier IQ software is what’s known as a rootkit that is installed at a carrier’s request on mobile phones. The software raises user privacy concerns in light of the fact that it runs in the background and monitors and logs user activity.

Carrier IQ is believed to be installed on well over 100 million devices today.

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On Monday, Intel and MasterCard touted a new multi-year partnership and “strategic collaboration” aimed at bringing further enhancements to security and consumer payment experience with online shopping.

According to a press release heralding the partnership, MasterCard will fuse its expertise in payment processing and commerce with Intel’s strengths in silicon innovation and chip-based security.

It is designed to provide more options for a safer and simpler checkout process for online merchants and consumers using Ultrabook devices and future generations of Intel-based PCs.

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They say you have to take the good with the bad. And what’s true of life must also be true of mobile.

Unfortunately, QR codes have been targeted as a new way of delivering malware to smartphones.

According to Laptop Magazine, security firm Kaspersky Lab discovered QR tags “embedded with code that directs the Android smartphones that interact with them to malicious websites hosting an Android Trojan.”

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The following is a guest post James Bentham on behalf of Mobile Interactive Group.

With the majority of large retailers in the UK choosing to capitalise on the mobile commerce channel, those who have been left behind are now scrabbling to catch up. Still in its relative infancy, mCommerce has developed quickly throughout 2011 and shows no signs of slowing. The brands who have benefitted most were the ones not afraid to innovate and take some risks.

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Google Wallet has been updated to include a variety of new features, an improved UI for the transaction detail screen and several bug fixes, according to the search giant.

For those unfamiliar, Google Wallet is a new service that allows users to make mobile payments from their mobile devices using Google Prepaid Cards or a Citi MasterCard.  At the moment, the service is extremely limited — only available to users rocking Sprint’s Nexus S 4G — but availability to other phones and carriers should be announced in the coming months.

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The following is a guest post from Tope Abayomi, Founder of Emityme Apps.

Can your customers pay for product and/or services through a mobile phone?  If not, you should start thinking of implementing an option unless you’re comfortable  leaving money on the table.

New forecasts from PayPal show that this year’s total mobile payments (TMP) volume is expected to reach $3 billion.  But PayPal only serves a small part of the mobile payment market.  For all mobile payments sent through all systems in the US, the total volume is set to hit the $6B mark, according to Forrester Research. PayPal’s number is double from what they expected at the start of the year, as the number of customers using their phones to pay has soared.

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When Sony promised to bolster its security following the recent hack attack that penetrated and collapsed the PlayStation Network, the consumer electronics giant wasn’t joking.

On Tuesday, Sony announced it’s installment of a former high-ranking U.S. Department of Homeland Security official as the new chief security officer at Sony.

Philip Reitinger, the former deputy under secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will now serve as “senior vice president and chief information security officer” at Sony.

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