In today’s Quick Hits, we explore why politicians should be careful what they tweet, what Apple meant by its recent privacy changes, and the issues that will come up during Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest TV interview yet.
It’s official, China and Google are friends again. Last week, we learned that Google and China had reached a tentative agreement that would allow the company to continue operations in the country. The agreement depended on Google discontinuing its practice of sending Chinese users to its censor-free Hong Kong domain. Google is still allowed to have a tab for users to manually switch to the Hong Kong portal. Today, Chinese government authorities officially confirmed the arrangement.
Last month, Apple Inc. made waves when the company made a revision to its privacy policy. The small but significant change gave Apple the power to collect “precise location data” and the “real-time geographic location” of Apple devices. After much criticism over the change, Apple has issued a 13-page letter explaining the policy in detail, clarifying that users must first opt-in to location sharing. Apple also explained how the company uses the information it collects.
According to Politico, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) has been working on his own version of the Internet privacy bill first put forward by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) several weeks ago. Boucher’s legislation, which was criticized by Internet companies for being too harsh and by privacy advocates for being too soft, addressed the issue of behavioral online advertising and whether companies should be required to tell consumers how their data is being used. Rep. Rush’s legislation is expected to be a more moderate approach to the issue, but nobody outside of Washington D.C. has had a chance to examine his proposals yet.
A UK politician has learned the hard way that you have to be careful what you say on Twitter. During a trip to London, Councillor John Dixon’s wrote this after passing a Scientology center: “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.” Soon enough, others on Twitter picked up on Dixon’s tweet and began repeating it, eventually creating a Twitter trending topic for the phrase #StupidScientology.
Naturally, members of the controversial church were not too pleased and filed a complaint against Dixon. The Cardiff City Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee will convene to determine whether Dixon violated a code of conduct with his tweet.
Diane Sawyer will interview Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on ABC tomorrow night at 6:30PM. Zuckerberg’s appearance on “World News with Diane Sawyer” coincides with the news that his company will soon pass 500 million users. During the interview, Sawyer will tour Facebook’s headquarters in Palo Alto and talk to Zuckerberg about the privacy issues that have swirled around the company in recent months. The interview may also touch on the new film The Social Network, a semi-fictionalized account of Facebook’s founding.
If you run a business, proactively managing your online reputation is critical to your success. Unfortunately even if do everything right, sometimes you can still have your reputation tarnished through “guilt by association.”
In his latest video blog post, Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik explores the issue of “guilt by association” as it relates to the energy industry in the wake of BP’s devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In today’s Quick Hits, we touch on Facebook’s enormous growth, Google’s enormous political clout, and the enormous ramifications of using facial recognition technology to automatically “check-in” social networking users.
Facebook is expected to cross the 500 million user mark this week. The company plans to celebrate the milestone with “‘Facebook Stories,’ a collection of real-life blurbs from Facebook users about how the social networking site has impacted their lives.” Reaching half a billion users in only six years is an impressive feat and shows just how important Facebook has become to the overall Internet landscape.
In his Technically Incorrect column for CNET, Chris Matyszczyk explores the problem of death on Facebook. Matyszczyk explains that when a Facebook user dies, his or her profile page becomes a sort of living memorial where friends and loved ones can say their last goodbyes. However, because the user is dead, it is also an unguarded memorial, meaning it can be hijacked by someone with ill intentions. It is an interesting problem, and one which Facebook’s founders surely did not anticipate when they began the site six years ago.
Facial recognition software is already being used for photos, could it soon be sued for video as well? This article from ReadWriteWeb touches on technology entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s recent investment into facial recognition technology. Cuban explains that the technology could be used for public safety purposes, but also as a tool for location-based social networking users to “check-in” to an event on Foursquare or Gowalla. The RWW article makes the apt comparison to the Steven Spielberg film “Minority Report” in which individuals are scanned by billboards and offered personalized advertising.
Last week, Google took another step toward improving semantic web search with the acquisition of Metaweb. According to the official Google blog, the acquisition is meant to help Google answer specific questions that are hard for the company’s algorithm to understand. With Metaweb’s technology, Google hopes to improve its ability to answer search queries like ‘colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000′ or ‘actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar.’
This article in the Politico explores Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s political influence and why it has made some privacy advocates in Washington D.C. nervous. The article touches on Google’s strong relationship with congressional leaders, the FTC, and even with President Obama.
In today’s Quick Hits, Facebook users need to keep their eyes open for suspicious Coca-Cola messages and HBO star Casey Neistat shares his thoughts on Internet privacy.
To avoid getting in trouble, teachers shouldn’t connect with their students while they’re teaching. Once those students are all grown up and the teacher is retired, things become easier. The New York Times has a nice small article discussing how former students are reconnecting with their elementary and high school teachers decades later through Facebook. Seeing a 40 year old former student connect with a 70 year old former teacher on Facebook really shows just how all-encompassing the website has become.
Sophos has identified a new scam that is hitting Facebook in full force. The scam revolves around Coca-Cola and typically includes the message, “I am part of the 98.0% of people that are NEVER gonna drink Coca Cola again after this HORRIFIC video.” Once a user clicks on the video, an error message pops up prompting the user to Like and share it multiple times. The user is then asked to take a quiz revealing their personal information.
In an effort to remain relevant against competitor Facebook, MySpace is in the process of rolling out site-wide design changes. The main profile page for users will now be much simpler (an obvious nod to Facebook) and will also feature updates from other social media services.
A man has been arrested for arson after he allegedly set a car on fire and then posted the images of the burning vehicle to Facebook. The man doesn’t deny posting the pictures on Facebook, undoubtedly a foolish decision, but he denies setting the vehicle on fire, claiming instead that he saw a “small campfire” in the back seat.
Filmmaker Casey Neistat of the HBO show The Neistat Bros. recently wrote and produced a very entertaining and enlightening short video on Facebook privacy settings. Neistat has made similar videos about Chatroulette, the iPhone, and other technology subjects.
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook’s continued mobile growth, why a celebrity’s angry tweets are worth paying attention to, and thoughts from the National Association of Realtors on possible data privacy legislation.
Since April, Facebook has added 50 million mobile users for a total of 150 million. Facebook hopes to further increase this number with the introduction of 0.facebook.com, “a mobile site that includes all the key features of Facebook but is optimized for speed.” With the rise in smartphone use, a growth in mobile social networking was to be expected. With increased mobile social networking, however, comes an increase in data security threats.
A lesson to all baristas out there, be nice to everyone you serve. Broadway and television actress Kristen Chenoweth took to Twitter recently to complain about a rude Starbucks barista. The celebrity complaint caught the attention of a Starbucks manager who informed her “I’m taking care of it.” Chenoweth doesn’t know whether she got the young woman fired, but, showing a lack of regard for the plight of the common worker, told David Letterman “People don’t have jobs so you better be grateful!”
The web makes life undeniably more convenient, but that convenience comes with a price. If you want to get information online, you also have to give some up in the form of personal browsing data. CNET’s Dennis O’Reilly highlights five extensions for the Firefox browser that can help web users limit the data that they are sharing online and better protect their privacy.
Sue Marquette Poremba of IT Business Edge discusses a recent Pew Research Center poll that predicts current members of Gen Y (individuals born during the 1980s and early 1990s) will continue to broadcast large amounts of personal information via social networking websites in 10 years. Poremba discusses this prediction in terms of how current Gen Y professionals may pose security problems for companies.
The Boucher-Stearns data privacy legislation that is currently making the rounds in Washington D.C. has raised the ire of numerous groups. One group that has voiced their opposition to the legislation is the National Association of Realtors, who claim that if the law were enacted, “impose a difficult and costly compliance burden on our industry especially impacting independent contractors and small businesses,” and would have “serious unintended consequences both for Realtors and for homebuying consumers.”
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