In today’s mega-sized Quick Hits, we share Search Engine Land’s social media predictions for 2011, discuss the case of the innocent man who was called a serial killer online, and why some teens prefer not using social networking websites.

–

Innocent Man Accused of Being “Kensington Strangler” on Facebook

A Philadelphia man found himself the victim of a cruel joke when he was falsely accused of being a suspect in a recent rash of strangling in the Kensington area. An unknown individual posted the man’s picture on fliers and on a Facebook page dedicated to catching the real killer. The man was forced to call the police out of fear that he would be attacked by vigilantes. When he was alerted to the situation, the moderator of the page wrote that the man was not a suspect, but who knows how much reputation damage the initial post caused.

Search Engine Land: 5 Social Media Predictions for 2011

Search Engine Land’s Ciaran Norris has an interesting list of five social media predictions for 2011. At the top of the list is the prediction that Facebook will top one billion users. Given the site’s extreme growth, it’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Within the last couple of years, the site has added hundreds of millions of users and there are several countries around the world where adoption is just now beginning to catch on.

AOL Acquires Personal “Business Card” Website About.me

Less than a week after the site’s formal launch, About.me has been acquired by AOL. About.me, which acts as a sort of online business card, gives individual’s a single place on the Web where they can share links to all of their social networking profiles. The idea isn’t original, but About.me offers an extremely clean look and a pleasant user experience. AOL has acquired lots of companies in 2010, as the company seeks to stay competitive with other web companies in a more social Internet.

Dating in a Facebook World

In an interesting column for Huffington Post, relationship expert Julie Spira discusses the rules of dating in a world where Facebook (not true love) is the one thing that binds us all. Spira’s advice is applicable not just to relationships, but for anyone seeking to keep their privacy online. For example, she writes “resist the urge to post photos on Facebook of your brand new relationship.” Spira argues not to do this because you might be pushing your partner too quickly. From a more practical perspective, it’s not good to overshare photos because you never know what lovey-dovey snapshot may rub people the wrong way.

Australian Football Player Apologizes for Nude Photo Scandal

Australian rules football player Sam Gilbert apologized after nude photos he had taken of fellow players Nick Riewoldt and others made their way online after a teenage girl posted them on Facebook. It is not clear how the teen came into possession of the pictures, as Gilbert and Riewoldt deny ever meeting her. An Australian Football League Player’s Association representative used the incident to illustrate why he believes Australia needs stronger personal privacy laws.

After Experiment, Some Teens Gave Up Social Networking for Good

In a recent “social experiment,” students from Shoreline, Washington’s Shorecrest High School gave up social media tools for one week. In other words, the students were forced to live like it was 1995 (not that long ago, but long enough to feel like the Ice Age to a 16-year-old). Despite going through Facebook withdrawal, however, some students actually enjoyed the experience and have stayed off of social networks several weeks after the experiment ended. This article from the Vancouver Sun talks with some of the students who gave up social networking for good.

UK Ambulance Service Staff in Trouble Over Silly Facebook Photos

A group of UK ambulance service employees are under investigation after several unflattering photos showed up online. To many people, the photos may seem tame: a group of co-workers goofing off around the office. However, because the workers are ambulance service professionals, expected to be alert and ready at a moment’s notice for emergency calls, the pictures aren’t seen in the same light. This incident demonstrates the high premium that employers and hiring manager place on online reputations. A silly photo may seem harmless, but it depends on who is looking.

In today’s Quick Hits, Google gets grief over a Street View picture of a woman’s underwear, the Wall Street Journal digs into the privacy problem with smart phones, and the UK confirms the deletion of Google Street View data.

–

Wall Street Journal Report Shows How Smart Phones Breach User Privacy

In a new investigative report, the Wall Street Journal shows how the iPhone and Android smart phones have violated user privacy by sharing device information to third-party companies without user consent. According to the report, “An examination of 101 popular smartphone “apps”—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone’s unique device ID to other companies without users’ awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone’s location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.”

When combined with a browsing history and other personal information, a unique mobile device ID gives third-party tracking companies more than enough data to create an advanced digital dossier of the user. In an article for Macworld, Les Friedman argues that the Wall Street Journal’s report is overblown, claiming that they can’t reveal exact locations, only approximations. Check out the Reputation.com Resource Center to learn more about protecting your mobile phone privacy.

Larry Magid: Thoughts on Facebook’s Facial Recognition Technology

In a recent column for the San Jose Mercury News, child safety advocate and Internet expert Larry Magid discusses Facebook’s recently announced facial recognition technology. In his article, Magid praises Facebook’s decision to not auto-tag faces, but rather to require a human to confirm its accuracy first. Magid also praises Facebook’s privacy controls around the new tagging feature. At the end of his article, Magid does ask some interesting questions about the future of facial recognition.

“Will technology, for example, eventually be able to calculate not just the ethnicity and gender of a person but the approximate age and even social status? Add that to the information that companies already know about us and we have the possibility of profiling based not just on our Web surfing habits but what we look like.”

“Who Has Deleted Ya?” Scam on Facebook

A new piece of spam is spreading through Facebook disguised as an app that supposedly shows who among your Facebook friends has deleted you. Whenever a new user clicks on the app, the same link appears on their profile. The phony “Who Has Deleted Ya?” app directs users to a survey that promises a new iPhone or iPad. Obviously, there is no prize, only one spammers attempts to beef up his commission earnings by getting people to take a survey.

UK Street View Data Deleted

According to a report in the BBC, “Personal data collected by Google’s UK Street View cars has been deleted. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which has been criticised for not taking a more hardline stance against Google, confirmed the deletion.  The first batch of wi-fi data, which included snippets of e-mails, URLs and passwords, was deleted in November.” The issue of what to do with the harvested data has played out differently around the world. In the United States, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has demanded Google turn over the data it harvested rather than destroy it.

Strange Story: Japanese Woman Sues Google Over Street View Image of Her Underwear

In a truly bizarre story that could only happen in the Internet age, a woman in Japan is suing Google after she found a picture of her underwear hanging up on a clothesline in a Google Street View image of her home. The woman claims that she “was overwhelmed with anxiety that [she] might be the target of a sex crime” and has sued Google for approximately $7,000. To the company’s credit, Google removed the image when she filed her law suit.

In an article today for the CNN Health blog The Chart, Georgiann Caruso explores the double-edged sword that is social media for medical practitioners. While social tools like Facebook and Twitter have made it easier for doctors to engage in professional branding, there is a risk that sharing too much will expose them in an inappropriate way to their patients. Furthermore, there is the risk that doctors will inadvertently share information about a patient through a status update or other public message.

This past November, the American Medical Association (which has partnered with Reputation.com to offer privacy protection and reputation management services to its members) instituted a social media policy for members. The social media policy is meant to give doctors guidance on how to use social media websites to promote their professional reputation, while avoiding some of the pitfalls that too much sharing can bring. Chiefly, the AMA recommends that doctors fully utilize privacy settings while logged-in to social networking websites.

Even with privacy settings in place, however, it is still possible for unwanted content to make its way online, either through a technical glitch, a hacking attack, or simply a misplaced click of the mouse. In the CNN piece, Dr. Bryan Vartabedian comments on the inevitability of social data becoming public saying, “I think physicians have become increasingly aware that whatever they do, whatever they say, that that information is going to be scrutinized and it’s going to be viewed publicly. We have to be looking at ourselves really as kind of being in the spotlight 24-7.”

Dr. Vartabedian’s insights are well stated. Doctors (along with lawyers, real estate agents, and all other professionals) need to recognize the fact that their reputations are as important online as they are in the real world. Online reputation management, combining reputation monitoring with proactive personal branding, is a must for all business owners in the new digital age.

[Image via PicasaWeb used under a Creative Commons Attribution License]

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about another celebrity death rumor on Twitter, President Obama’s privacy advocates, and the safety and security of electronic medical records.

–

Number of Social Networking Users Over 74 Years Old Quadruple in Two Years

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals that the millennial generation is still number one when it comes to tech savviness, but that social media use among older Internet users is rapidly growing. In particular, the report reveals that the fastest growing segment of social media users were ages 74 or older. From 2008 to 2010, the number of 74-year-olds on social media quadrupled from 4% to 16%.

Prison Guard Arrested for Impersonating his Boss on Facebook

A Rhode Island prison guard was arrested for setting up a phony Facebook account in his boss’s name. The guard pled not guilty to the charge of “use of fraudulent information” for pretending to be the head of Rhode Island’s state prison system. The authorities don’t know why the guard would have set up the account, and the report makes no mention of defamation.

Are the Things People Post on Facebook Trivial?

In an interesting column for the Dallas News, Jacquielynn Floyd argues that the status updates people share on Facebook are typically trivial and reveal narcissistic tendencies. Comparing modern social media users with an eccentric pastor who wrote and recorded every moment of his life in a series of diaries, Floyd writes that Facebook is “a major agent in the disconcerting erosion of a civilized boundary between the public and the private, and in our worrisome inability to sift the consequential from the trivial.”

Medical Records Privacy a Concern for Doctors and Patients

In a business column for the Houston Chronicle, Loren Steffy discusses the safety and security of medical records in the age of online tracking and data mining. Speaking with a doctor, Steffy explains how pharmaceutical companies can buy supposedly anonymous data, such as a doctor’s prescription history, and use it to offer him certain kinds of new drugs for his patients. When paired with additional contextual information, such as the kind shared online by the patients themselves, this data is not actually anonymous. This Houston Chronicle piece is an interesting read alongside this CNN article about the benefits and risks of doctors using social media websites like Facebook.

President Obama Makes First Two Picks to Privacy Board

Following up on a pledge to improve privacy protections for Americans, President Obama selected his first two picks to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Obama’s picks were Jim Dempsey, currently serving as vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Elisebeth Cook, a former assistant attorney general under President Bush who is now in private practice. The nominees must pass a Senate confirmation before they can assume their positions.

Morgan Freeman Death Hoax Spreads On Twitter

Celebrity death hoaxes are nothing new in Twitter. Still, it really hits home when people think it’s funny to pretend that Morgan Freeman has passed away. One Twitter user, just for kicks, posted a fake, but semi-official looking tweet supposedly from CNN claiming the actor had died. Word spread among his 1500 followers, leading to the widespread rumor. More than anything, this story indicates how reticent many social media users are to fact-checking stories before they pass them on.

This morning, the United States Department of Commerce released its long-awaited report on Internet privacy. Following in the footsteps of the FTC, whose privacy report called for a “Do Not Track” option that would give consumers the ability to opt out of Internet advertising, the Commerce Department report offers several key recommendations that would greatly strengthen consumer privacy protections and hold Internet companies accountable for the data they collect.

For a full analysis of the Commerce Department report, check out this article from the Reputation.com Resource Center.