Entries from May 2011 ↓
May 16th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new privacy proposal in California and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s thoughts on smartphones.
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A new law proposed in California would require social networking websites to have default privacy settings in place before users sign up for the service. The bill, SB242 from Senator Ellen Corbett, already faces stiff opposition from Internet companies, including Facebook and Google. Facebook spokesperson Andrew Noyes called the legislation “a serious threat both to Facebook’s business in California and to meaningful California consumers’ choices about use of personal data.” SB242 has stiff penalties for companies that don’t adhere to its rules. Companies would face a $10,000 fine if they were to ”display users’ home addresses or telephone number without their consent” or fail to remove information requested by the user “within 48 hours of the request.”
Forbes privacy blogger Kashmir Hill also writes about SB242, but her article focuses on the bill’s language regarding children and teen’s online. For users under the age of 18, the 48-hour window for removing content still applies, but the removal request would come from the user’s parent. Kashmir speculates that this law would give parents the ability to “prune” their kids’ Facebook profiles of any content they find objectionable. Also, given how difficult it is for Facebook to respond to user requests due to its sheer size, it is likely that the 48-hour window for removing content would be difficult to adhere to.
In a recent interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, Google Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt talked about smartphones and why storing information is necessary for them to function correctly. Quoting Schmidt: “Today, your phone knows who you are, where you are, where — where you’re going, to some degree, because it can see your path. And with that and with your permission, it’s possible for software and software developers to predict where you’re going to go, to suggest people you should meet, to suggest activities and so forth. So ultimately what happens is the mobile phone does what it does best, which is remember everything and make suggestions.” Google, along with Apple, recently came under fire over claims that the company’s smartphones were collecting location data users without their explicit consent
Many teens spend their entire waking life on their smartphones. This article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution discusses why that could be a problem. Featuring an interview with a super-vigilant mom, the article discusses how some parents strictly monitor what their kids do online and via their smartphones to protect them from making online reputation mistakes.
According to Law.com, “a San Jose federal judge on Thursday threw out most of the claims against Facebook Inc. in a privacy suit that claims it shared personal information with advertisers without users’ consent.” According to the Law.com analysis, “the ruling by Chief Judge James Ware signals the difficulty that plaintiffs may have in recovering damages from social media companies for alleged privacy breaches.”
May 13th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research, Twitter | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about how much your personal data is worth, privacy happenings on Capitol Hill, and whether we’re addicted to our smartphones.
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We’ve said that personal data is valuable to marketers, but, oddly enough, it’s also cheap. This report from Forbes privacy blogger Kashmir Hill analyzes how much money the personal data aggregator Rapleaf charges for certain pieces of information. The stats are eye-opening and, frankly, galling. Rapleaf charges as little as one cent for some of your personal information, including your income, marital status, and information on your credit card. Only slightly more expensive is information on your cell phone.
Of course, what goes unsaid is that these companies can sell and resell the data 10,000 times over. The actual lifetime value of a single piece of data can be worth thousands of dollars, which is why personal data aggregators can sell this data so cheaply and still be profitable.
This article from BusinessWeek discusses the numerous legislative proposals on Internet privacy reform floating around Congress and how recent data breaches have accelerated the issue in importance. Quoting the article, “A consensus has formed in Washington that the patchwork of federal and state privacy laws has not kept pace with the development of the Internet. The U.S. lags Europe, where broad safeguards of personal digital information have been in place since 1995.” What shape Internet reform takes is still up in the air, but at this point, some kind of legislation seems like a formality.
According to a Future of Privacy Forum analysis, nearly 75% of downloaded mobile apps lack privacy policies. The FPF did an analysis of “the top 30 paid mobile apps across the leading operating systems (iOS, Android, & Blackberry) and discovered that out of the top 30 applications, 22 of them — nearly three-quarters– lacked even a basic privacy policy.” Non-existent or unclear privacy policies are one of the big targets in pending Internet privacy legislation and are widely considered to contribute to data breaches and other security issues.
The efficacy of the U.K.’s so-called “super-injunction,” which prohibits the publication of any information deemed damaging to an individual or corporation, has been put to the test in the courts after anonymous users on social media websites like Twitter and Facebook began routinely breaking the injunctions. According to the Guardian, “a high court judge has issued an injunction which for the first time explicitly bans publication of information on Twitter and Facebook,” meaning that, if the anonymous individuals were discovered, they could be charged with a crime and possibly jailed. Interestingly, however, because Twitter and Facebook are American companies, it’s unclear whether or not U.K. courts could compel the to give up a user’s identity.
According to a new survey featured on Mashable.com, over one-third of smartphone users (35%) load an app on their phone before getting out of bed for the day. Given how smartphones and smartphone apps have been linked to personal privacy concerns, this is an interesting piece of news. As a culture, we seem to be on our phones literally all day.
May 12th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Twitter | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we follow-up on some of the fallout from Facebook’s alleged data breach, and we also share the story of Facebook’s other Mark Zuckerberg.
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Facebook Calls Breach Report Inaccurate
Following reports that Facebook leaked user data via third-party applications, the company is reaching out to reporters to explain why the story has been overblown. According to a CBC News report, Facebook sent an e-mail saying, “we’ve conducted a thorough investigation which revealed no evidence of this issue resulting in a user’s private information being shared with unauthorized third parties.” Furthermore, Facebook wrote that the”vast majority” of “access tokens” in question, which are said to act like spare keys to user account information, expired within two hours of being issued.
If you share a name with the founder of Facebook, you’d think you’d get better treatment. Unfortunately for Mark Zuckerberg, an Indianapolis attorney, sharing the same name as the Facebook founder only got him kicked off of the site as a possible impersonator. Time’s Techland blog writes that the Indy Zuckerberg has since had his Facebook account restored, but that the mix-up still causes plenty of problems, including hundreds of confused friend requests and calls to his law firm’s offices asking for Facebook tech support.
While Facebook is seeking to downplay a Symantec report about a data breach, Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton are asking the company to explain the security vulnerability. Reps. Markey and Barton are two of the more privacy-aware legislators in the House of Representatives and have called on Facebook to answer privacy questions in the past. To its credit, Facebook says it will work with Reps. Markey and Barton on further explaining the issue.
This article from the Economist details the ongoing battle in the U.K. courts over the efficacy of so-called “super-injunctions” in the face of social media technology such as Twitter. In the U.K., individuals can obtain an injunction over an embarrassing news story if they have the money and power. But this injunction is hard to enforce when the individual breaking it is an anonymous user on Twitter. Further complicating the issue is the question of whether mainstream news organizations can report the news once it has been shared on Twitter.
In an op-ed for the Huffington Post, Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer writes in support of new “Do Not Track” legislation aimed at kids. The proposed legislation, drafted by Congresssmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton, would be a significant update to the existing child privacy law, COPPA, which passed in 1998, well before social media technology took off. According to Steyer, “It is promising and refreshing to see members of both parties come together in the interest of kids and families, and we hope that the industry will finally realize that they have to take the privacy of consumers seriously.”
May 11th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, Facebook data security is the big story following a Symantec report that Facebook leaked personal data about users through third-party apps. Also, we have some interesting news on Google Street View.
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This report from CNN’s Doug Gross offers a good overview of Facebook’s most recent privacy issue. According to a recent report from security firm Symantec, over a period of several years, “hundreds of thousands of apps may have gotten ‘access tokens,’ which the company described as sort of a spare key to people’s accounts.” Facebook claims that the problem has been resolved and also that “user information was never shared with unauthorized third parties,” citing its contractual agreements with third-party developers to not share user data.
PCWorld also covered the Symantec report on Facebook and offered a solution for individuals who may have been affected by the breach. According to PCWorld, “third parties may still be able to access your information if they were given offline tokens that don’t expire until you change your password. So this means you should change your password.”
The BBC’s report on the Facebook breach offers some additional insight into the Symantec findings. Quoting third-party security expert Paul Mutton of Netcraft, the BBC article states that the “vulnerability could potentially be used for malicious purposes, [but that] no secure data such as passwords has been taken.” Nevertheless, the breach does demonstrate that there are more security holes in Facebook than the company can possibly be aware of, given its tremendous size and unprecedented growth.
A suburban Chicago teen was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after creating a Facebook page ranking 50 girls in his high school and then distributing fliers with the information at his school. CNET’s Chris Matyszczyk notes that the teen’s “vocabulary was not exemplary,” which is one of the reasons why the page may have come to the attention of school officials and police. Some of the details of the case are unclear, but one wonders whether or not the boy will attempt to turn around and sue the school or police department for violating his first amendment rights.
According to a new survey of “more than 2,000 employees for computer services provider HCL Technologies,” half of employees have been banned y their bosses from using Facebook during work hours over fears that the company’s “business reputation was at stake by staff using social networking sites.” The issue of productivity was also a concern cited in the report.
According to wire reports, “Google said on Wednesday that it will appeal to Switzerland’s highest court against a ruling ordering the Internet giant to ensure that all people and cars pictured on Street View are unrecognizable.” Google argued that it cannot comply with the ruling and that “about 1,000 Swiss companies had already integrated Street View into their websites, including property agents, the post office and city councils,” making the process impossible. Google has faced criticism over Street View all over the world, but the issue has been of particular concern in Europe.
May 10th, 2011 | CyberBullying, Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about this morning’s Senate mobile privacy hearings, as well as some interesting new research into how teens utilize Facebook and other social media tools.
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This morning, Sen. Al Franken convened a hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, entitled ”Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy.” Numerous privacy experts were in attendance, as were representatives from major tech companies such as Google and Apple. USA Today’s Mike Snider covered the event with a live blog. Check it out for the blow-by-blow coverage of the hearing.
The Wall Street Journal also covered this morning’s mobile privacy hearing. This article, by Amy Schatz, reports on how Apple and Google responded to privacy questions during the hearing. Recently, both Apple and Google were accused of collecting user location data without user consent, which was one of the primary catalysts for the hearing in the first place. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and Google both stood firm on their privacy practices during the hearing, claiming that they are dedicated to consumer privacy.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller recently unveiled a new Do-Not-Track law, adding more fire to the already burning issue of Internet privacy legislation. This article from PCWorld discusses Sen. Rockefeller’s legislation and quotes numerous representatives from consumer privacy rights groups who have come out in favor of the bill. Sen. Rockefeller’s bill is one of several pieces of Internet privacy legislation floating around Washington D.C.
An interesting article from the Microsoft Blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligence discusses how teens view privacy differently than adults when it comes to Facebook. According to cited research, teens tend to consider content shared on Facebook as private, while also recognizing that their conversations are occurring in public. The article likens it to a group of friends talking to each other in a public mall. Other passersby may hear the conversation, and could even join in, but they don’t, because there is a reasonable expectation that the group is having a semi-private conversation. This understanding of privacy also explains why teens become so offended when parents or other authority figures interfere in their social media lives.
A new Consumer Reports survey reveals some interesting findings about young Facebook users. According to the survey, “of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook in the past year, 7.5 million—or more than one-third—were younger than 13 and not supposed to be able to use the site.” Additionally, “among young users, more than 5 million were 10 and under, and their accounts were largely unsupervised by their parents.” Those are large numbers of unsupervised children online, which can be a concern for victims of cyberbullying. The research also showed that, “one million children were harassed, threatened, or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on the site in the past year.”
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