Entries from October 2011 ↓
October 17th, 2011 | Privacy, Reputation.com News | Rob Frappier
Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik will share a stage with Martha Stewart, George Clooney, Russell Simmons, Muhammad Yunus, and Jeff Taylor at the Global Leadership Forum in Australia. The one-day event will help attendees “unwrap the concepts, vision and motivation that made these breakthrough leaders capable of challenging business norms and inventing new ways of thinking, working and living.”
Michael’s presentation is entitled “Online & On-Guard: How to Build Brands & Protect Privacy.” The Global Leadership Forum is December 12th.
Check out the official Global Leadership Forum website for more information on this special event and the other presenters. You can also follow the event on Twitter using the hashtag #globalleadershipforum.
October 17th, 2011 | Facebook, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, tracking technology helps uncover a cheating spouse, Larry Magid discusses the dangers of oversharing, a teacher gets in trouble over Facebook posts, and a New York woman creates a new online identity with a UK woman’s photos.
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Kashmir Hill at Forbes has the story of how the iPhone’s new “Find My Friends” feature may have helped a husband find his cheating wife. Hill writes that the Find My Friends feature makes tracking easy: “Now you can just install the ‘Find My Friends’ app on your wife’s new iPhone 4s without her knowledge and see if she goes where she said she was going to go on a Saturday night. That’s what one Machead claims to have done this weekend, and now he’s planning to file for a divorce.” Naturally, the legality of the spurned husband’s tracking has been called into question. The courts are still debating whether GPS tracking is a violation of privacy.
In a column for the San Jose Mercury News, child safety advocate and tech expert Larry Magid talks about the dangers of oversharing online. Recalling a recent incident where a Google engineer accidentally made a negative rant about Google+ public, Magid offers tips on how to make sure you know when you’re sharing privately and publicly.
An Alabama school teacher is in trouble after he allegedly mocked students with special needs in a Facebook post. According to the Los Angeles Times, the teacher made derogatory statements about special-ed students and also “posted a picture of himself with a helmet” to make fun of students. The school declined to say what punishment the teacher faced for his posts, but that “appropriate measures” were taken.
WalesOnline has the unusual story of how a New York woman used a Welsh woman’s online pictures to set up a fake MySpace account and engage in a four-year online relationship with a man. The details of the story are too complicated to repeat here, but the basic takeaway is that the Internet is a crazy place.
October 14th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the infamous Hollywood hacker, why Facebook doesn’t have to give you all of your data, Verizon’s big privacy policy changes, and how a New Jersey teacher’s Facebook comments have started a mini-controversy in her school district.
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The Florida man arrested for hacking into the e-mail accounts of Scarlet Johansson, Mila Kunis, and other celebrities has apologized for his actions, claiming that he knew what he was doing was wrong but that he couldn’t stop himself. According to the hacker, he “became addicted to seeing the behind-the-scenes of what’s going on with these people you see on the big screen every day.” If convicted of all charges, the hacker faces up to 121 years in prison.
In news that clearly demonstrates Facebook’s priorities when it comes to user data, the company recently revealed that international law protects it from having to give up all data about users, even if they request the data themselves. The news came out when users of the social sharing website Reddit flooded Facebook with data requests and the company was forced to reject the requests.
The Los Angeles Times reports that “Verizon Wireless has made a change in its privacy policy that clears the nation’s largest wireless carrier to track its subscribers’ Web browsing, location and app usage habits. The change in Verizon’s privacy policy covers all customers of the company by default, automatically opting-in subscribers, though they can opt out of this if they want.”
A New Jersey teacher sparked a controversy after school administrators discovered anti-gay speech on her Facebook wall. The woman, who was expressing her religious beliefs regarding homosexuality, may face investigation over whether she violated the state’s Law Against Discrimination.
October 13th, 2011 | CyberBullying, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, some school teachers get in trouble for making fun of students online, the USPS is criticized over privacy issues, a mom wonders when bullying is really bullying, and the FBI makes an arrest in the case of the Hollywood hacker.
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A school in the U.K. was forced to offer an embarrassing apology to parents when several of its teachers were discovered referring to students as inbred during an online chat on Facebook. This isn’t the first time a school has faced criticism for its teachers remarks. Earlier this year, a first-grade teacher in New Jersey was suspended for calling students “future criminals.”
For years, the cash-strapped United States Postal Service has earned money by sending ads to individuals as part of its change of address welcome kit, but privacy advocates argue that the arrangement may be in violation of federal privacy laws. According to the Washington Times, “While these welcome kits may provide a targeted marketing opportunity for advertisers and much-needed revenue for the USPS, federal agencies aren’t allowed to sell or rent personal information such as names and addresses under the federal Privacy Act.” The USPS has defended the partnership and claims that it’s doing nothing illegal.
In this article for TIME, Bonnie Rochman talks about bullying and why it can be hard for parents to identify if their child is being bullied or is a bully themselves due to changing definitions of the act. Rochman also discusses research into anti-bullying techniques and how children naturally form antipathetic relationships with some of their peers.
A Florida man has been arrested for hacking into the e-mail, cell phones, and social media accounts of Scarlett Johansson and other notable celebrities. According to the AP report, “the FBI announced that it had made an out-of-state arrest Wednesday morning in a year-long investigation of celebrity hacking that was dubbed Operation Hackerazzi.”
October 12th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about data collection online, Facebook’s desire for younger users, an annoying Spotify bug, and concerns over frictionless sharing online.
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A new report from the Stanford Center for Internet and Society reveals just how rampant data collection is online and how difficult it is for individuals to protect their information while browsing the Web. According to PCMag, “researchers created an account and interacted with 185 Web sites that offered a sign up, did not require a purchase, and had limited features so as to be practical for the study. They were able to identify a username or user ID leaked to a third party on 113 of those Web sites. The top five sites that received the data were: comScore, Google Analytics, Quantcast, Google’s DoubleClick, and Facebook.” The way that this leaked information can be used to create a detailed profile of individuals is worrying to government regulators who are considering enacting a “Do Not Track” law to protect personal privacy online.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, Emily Bazelon explains why Facebook wants to amend the federal Child Online Privacy Protection Act to make it easier for kids under the age of 13 to join the site, writing that “Facebook has tripled its spending on lobbying, formed a political action committee and hired former Bush and Obama officials to push for its agenda.” Despite the company’s efforts, however, it appears that new child privacy legislation may be on the horizon with Congress considering a proposal that “would bar Web sites outright from using kids’ data to target ads to them until they are 17.”
Spotify angered fans recently when it forced users to sign-in through Facebook with the social sharing option enabled by default. Spotify quickly backtracked and added a private listening option, but the company missed an important bug, which caused users to continue to sharing music even after opting out. According to ZDNet, “Apparently, the Spotify app disregarded users having disconnected their Facebook accounts, and logged them back in the next time they loaded the app. As a result, users who explicitly said they no longer wanted to share their music listening activity with their Facebook friends may have continued to share songs on the social network.”
This article from The Hill discusses how privacy groups and some congressional leaders are concerned over Facebook’s recently announced “frictionless sharing” feature. Quoting the article, Facebook “points out that users still have complete control over which applications share their data and who has access to different types of profile information…but privacy advocates respond that the controls are either too complex or wrongly make public sharing the default option.”
