Entries from April 2011 ↓
April 7th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Twitter | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we share some privacy updates from Washington D.C. and a link to 20 of the worst things you could tweet.
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In a report for CNET, Declan McCullogh writes that the U.S. Justice Department has come out against revising the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. According to the report, “James Baker, the associate deputy attorney general, warned that rewriting [the law] to grant cloud computing users more privacy protections and to require court approval before tracking Americans’ cell phones would hinder police investigations.” The law, which was written well before the personal computing era, has been difficult for judges to interpret in the context of today’s technology.
In a statement, Sen. Al Franken, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s new privacy panel, spoke out about the recent Epsilon data breach saying “we need to give Americans more awareness about who has their information and greater ability to protect it.” Franken is one of many legislators interested in the Epsilon breach and its implications for personal privacy. According to Politico, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Mary Bono Mack and G.K. Butterfield are also keeping tabs on the situation.
According to an AP report, the government is planning to use the popular social networking websites Facebook and Twitter to warn citizens about changes in the terrorism threat levels. Quoting the story, “The U.S. government’s new system to replace the five color-coded terror alerts will have two levels of warnings — elevated and imminent — that will be relayed to the public only under certain circumstances for limited periods of time, sometimes using Facebook and Twitter.” Before posting the warning to the social media sites, however, “federal, state and local government leaders will have already been notified.”
In a report for CNN, Mark Milian describes Facebook’s ongoing overhaul of its messaging system and why it is the company’s most complex project to date. According to the article, “in the time since cementing the concept and in the months since beginning the rollout with much fanfare, [Facebook's] engineers have run into some monumental hurdles.” Facebook is continuing to work on the project, but the company’s slow progress underlies just how big of a change this could be to Internet communications.
We’ve come so far thanks to technology. With Twitter, it only takes 140 characters to ruin your reputation. In this interesting feature for the Telegraph, Matthew Moore highlights 20 of the worst ways to use Twitter and explains why each one is so terrible for your followers.
April 6th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, more fallout for the Chicago teacher who made fun of one of the students online, insight into how a social engineering scam operates, and and news about California’s newly introduced Do Not Track legislation.
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Last week, I shared the story of a Chicago public school teacher who was suspended for posting a photo of a student online and mocking it with her friends. Now, the teacher is facing a lawsuit over the issue, with the student’s mother alleging that the incident caused the seven-year-old girl “emotional distress.” Chicago Public Schools is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
A UK bank employee was recently fired after sharing a post on Facebook criticizing the amount of money the CEO of her bank earned compared to her salary. Despite the fact that the employee was fired only hours after the post, the bank has stated that the Facebook comment had nothing to do with the decision. According to an official statement, “the work she had been brought in to do was coming to an end and so she was given her notice. It was only after the notice was served that the comments she made on Facebook then came to light.”
In an engaging report for CBS News, Charles Cooper writes about how he nearly fell for a scam on Facebook. The story illustrates how cyber criminals are using sophisticated social engineering to craft persuasive scams by pretending to be a friend or loved one in need of help. Cooper was able to uncover the truth through some clever questioning, but not all Facebook users are that savvy. A particularly popular target for social engineering attacks are grandparents, who are tricked into believing that their grandchild is in trouble via a phony Facebook message.
In a great article for Forbes, Erika Morphy offers an interpretation of a “Dear Customer” letter from one of the companies affected by the massive Epsilon data breach. Morphy’s sharply satiric letter shows how companies really feel about personal data and why they don’t take the appropriate actions to protect personal information (because it costs more money, because they’re not legally obligated to, and because they don’t really know how).
According to the Los Angeles Times, “California is putting itself in position to lead the fight for increased online privacy by trying to pass the country’s first so-called do-not-track law to keep personal data from being grabbed off the Internet. Legislation by state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) would create a mechanism to allow users of smartphones, tablets, computers and any other device that accesses the Internet to tell website operators they don’t want their online habits monitored.” The Times article goes into the specifics of the bill and offers a strong analysis of the current state of affairs regarding do not track and Internet privacy legislation.
April 5th, 2011 | Online Reputation Management, Reputation.com News | Rob Frappier
Digital lifestyle expert Mario Armstrong appeared as a guest this morning on The Early Show on CBS. During his segment, Mario talked with The Early Show’s Chris Wragge about the importance of online reputation management. In addition to some great advice on how to keep your reputation looking good online, Mario also gave a nice shout-out to Reputation.com.
Check out the segment in the video above. For more great tech advice from Mario Armstrong, visit his official website or follow him on Twitter.
April 5th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the Epsilon data breach and a federal investigation into how smart phone applications use personal information from users, among other hot topics.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that “federal prosecutors in New Jersey are investigating whether numerous smartphone applications illegally obtained or transmitted information about their users without proper disclosures.” The online streaming music website Pandora was one of the companies contacted as part of the investigation. The probe may not necessarily involve criminal charges, but is the first attempt by government officials to investigate the multi-billion dollar mobile app industry.
In a well-written and level-headed article for MSNBC’s The Red Tape Chronicles, consumer advocate Bob Sullivan talks about the recent data breach at the e-mail marketing management firm Epsilon. In his report, Sullivan explains why the Epsilon breach matters to consumers and the steps they can take to protect themselves from identity theft.
Sullivan also talks about the greater issues related to the data mining industry and speaks with privacy experts, including Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
In an effort to protect user privacy and information, “more than 20 Web firms active in France, including Google, Facebook and eBay, have filed a complaint against a decree that requires them to store users’ emails, passwords and other information for a year.” According to The Hill, “the decree requires e-commerce firms to store that information, as well as telephone numbers, password hints, mailing addresses and pseudonyms, for up to a year so the data can be used by police or other authorities as part of an investigation.”
According to a PCWorld report, “a Swiss court has ruled that Google is breaching citizens’ right to privacy with its Street View service and should take greater steps to obscure people caught by its cameras.” Google Street View has also faced criticism in Germany, where regulators obligated Google to provide a tool that would allow individuals to have their homes or business blurred out.
April 4th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new Facebook scam, how one chef’s online rant may have hurt his credibility, and Consumer Watchdog’s aggressive demands for new Google CEO Larry Page.
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A new scam is sweeping across Facebook at incredible speeds, racking up more than 600,000 victims in just a short time. According to The Atlantic, the scam works like this: “On their Facebook Chat window, users are receiving messages from friends that read, “hey, i just made a photoshop of you.” The message includes a link to a third-party application that asks for access to your profile, access you’ve likely granted to dozens of outside apps in the past. Once you’ve fallen for the trick, the app distracts you with pictures of animals with human-like faces as it quickly goes to work spamming your Facebook friends via Chat.” If you get a message on Facebook like the one described, do not click on the link.
A chef who formerly worked at the New York City restaurant Tavern on the Green may have hurt his ability to get another high profile cooking job after posting a rant on Facebook describing how he ignored diners’ requests for gluten-free food and served them gluten-packed food anyway. According to the New York Daily News, the chef’s rant has been picked up by popular food blogs and is gaining significant attention on websites dedicated to Celiac disease – a disorder linked to gluten consumption.
Responding to a study that claims women post more photos online to gain approval and esteem, Allure.com writer Elizabeth Angell asks readers to offer their own opinion on the subject. Angell argues that the researcher’s conclusions aren’t necessarily accurate and that women post content to social networking websites because they like to stay connected.
According to The Hill, consumer privacy group Consumer Watchdog has challenged new Google CEO Larry Page “to support a Do-Not-Track regime for Internet privacy outlined in a California state bill.” The challenge comes as Page takes over for departing CEO Eric Schmidt, who was criticized by many privacy advocates for his official stance on privacy issues. Schmidt will remain at Google in an advisory position.
In an op-ed for Forbes, Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, argues that Internet privacy legislation would be harmful to businesses and consumers and would eventually results in the “birth of the privacy tax.” Thierer argues that privacy advocates haven’t made a clear case for privacy harm and, therefore, haven’t shown the need for privacy regulations. However, Thierer focuses only on the issue of Internet advertising in his editorial, rather than on the more insidious kinds of data abuse going on among data miners and information aggregators.
