In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about professional social media profiles, the Supreme Court’s upcoming privacy cases, and why Facebook’s new “Timeline” profile may be risky to those trying to keep their web habits secret.

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Survey Reveals What Employers Look for on Candidates’ Facebook Pages

It’s common knowledge that employers look at prospective job candidates’ Facebook pages, but they’re not only looking to disqualify people. They are also looking for things that distinguish candidates. This article from Forbes’ Kashmir Hill discusses a new survey from Reppler that shows 68% of hiring managers have hired an employee based on positive social media impressions. According to the survey, 39% of employers hired someone because their profile “gave a positive impression of their personality and organizational fit.” Creativity and being well-rounded were two other attributes that earned high marks from hiring managers.

Supreme Court Tackling Major Privacy Cases in New Term

The United States Supreme Court will hear several cases in its new term related to personal privacy. CNET’s Declan McCullagh breaks down the Supreme Court’s privacy cases, including one that will determine whether GPS tracking by law enforcement is legal without a search warrant. This is the first time the court has addressed this issue since the 1980s, when tracking technology was significantly less advanced.

Facebook Advice for Employers and Employees

In this article for CNET, Dennis O’Reilly discusses the National Labor Relations Board’s efforts to protect individuals who have been fired for posting inappropriate, but legally allowed, content on their online profiles. O’Reilly also offers tips to employers on how to craft an effective social media policy that doesn’t quell speech, as well as tips to employees on how to act online so as to avoid getting in trouble with one’s boss.

Small Change to Facebook Tagging Presents Privacy Concerns

Most of the press surrounding Facebook’s recent profile overhaul has focused on the site’s drastically different new look, but The Globe and Mail touches on a smaller, but arguably more important change. According to The Globe and Mail, Facebook has changed how users can untag themselves in photos, making it much harder for individuals to manage their online image. Quoting the article, “After a small interface switchup, Facebook now only offers users a one-click way to hide the photo on their profile – but not to get rid of the tag itself. The photo will still be identified in the album of the person who posted it, should anyone see it there. The link will still go to your page. And most importantly, Facebook itself will still know that it’s you in that picture.” Facebook’s desire for more tags, at the cost of user control, reveals the company’s true position on privacy.

Facebook Timeline Causes Privacy Panic

This amusing and insightful article from the Sophos security blog discusses how Facebook’s new “Timeline” profile design may pose major problems for individuals who want to keep their online actions private. The article also discusses how difficult editing one’s timeline is, saying, “Facebook has made it as simple as pie to edit your Timeline, if you like pie that’s really bad. It amounts to a grueling item-by-item scouring, a drop-down click for each item.” Facebook has announced that the Timeline rollout will occur on October 11th. At that time, there will surely be an uproar from a good portion of the company’s 800+ million users, but will it be enough to warrant any action?

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the return of the Facebook tracking cookie, firing employees for social media posts, the fight against online scammers, and a privacy lawsuit against the Internet radio station Pandora.

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Controversial Facebook Tracking Cookie Returns

According to Australian hacker Nic Cubrilovic, Facebook recently reactivated a controversial tracking cookie. According to ZDNet, “the cookie was being set even if the user had never been to the Facebook site, and even if he or she didn’t click on a given Facebook widget.” The first time this cookie was exposed, it led to widespread criticism of Facebook and a prominent article in the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook Beefs Up Fight Against Scammers

Every day, scammers and other cyber-criminals use Facebook to con people out of money or sensitive personal information. Now, Facebook is taking steps to protect users from scammers. According to CNN, “[Facebook] is teaming up with Websense, a San Diego, California-based Internet security firm, to warn users when they’re about to leave Facebook for a site that might be trying to steal their personal data.” This prompt will help users avoid phishing attacks and protect their personal information online.

Judge Backs Car Dealership in Social Media Firing

The National Labor Relations Board has stepped up to defend several individuals who were fired from their jobs over social media posts, but a recent ruling reveals that the organization is being careful in its considerations. According to the Chicago Tribune, an administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that ”a BMW car dealership in Lake Bluff did not violate federal labor law in firing a salesman after he embarrassed the company in a Facebook post.” The employee’s post criticized the car dealership for serving low-quality food instead of something that better reflected the dealership’s luxury brand.

Pandora Sued for Sharing User Data

The popular Internet radio service Pandora has been sued for sharing user data. According to The Register, “Michigan’s Video Rental Privacy Act has been cited in a new class action lawsuit against Pandora, claiming $5,000 damages per person. The lawsuit says that by making playlists and histories public and searchable by Google, privacy was violated.” The Pandora lawsuit echos concerns over the music sharing site Spotify, which recently ran into trouble over a forced integration with Facebook that left many users sharing listening information that they wanted to keep private.

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the ongoing negative reactions from the privacy community to Facebook’s recent profile overhaul. We also talk about the legal problems with firing employees for social media posts, how almost all modern digital devices have privacy risks, and why journalism professor and author Jeff Jarvis believes that more openness is a good thing.

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Privacy Groups Call for Investigation into Facebook Changes

USA Today reports that 10 consumer privacy groups, along with Reps. Ed Markey and Joe Barton, have asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Facebook’s newly proposed Timeline feature, as well as numerous other changes from the site. According to Chris Calabrese of the American Civil Liberties Union, Facebook’s massive changes take away “the ability for consumers to control and protect their online reputations.” Others also argue that Facebook’s changes make users more susceptible to identity theft and other online crimes by making their personal information more accessible.

How Digital Devices Erode Personal Privacy

In an interesting feature for the Los Angeles Times, David Sarno writes about the way modern digital devices, such as cell phones, computers, and TVs, track and record significant data about individuals. Quoting the article, “The modern home, stocked with networked devices, has become a digital transmission station, endlessly relaying data to a wide array of for-profit companies that are largely invisible to the average parent and child.” Sarno goes on to write that “this explosion in the amount of data being collected has raised alarms in state capitols and in Washington, where lawmakers of both parties have proposed more than a dozen pieces of privacy legislation this year.” In the feature, Sarno examines how the members of one family are tracked throughout their day by their various devices.

National Labor Relations Board Rulings Leave Employers Confused Over Social Media Guidelines

In the last few years, the National Labor Relations Board has taken on a number of cases involving individuals who were fired for posting something inappropriate on Facebook or other social networking websites. Recently, the NLRB successfully argued that individuals fired for sharing comments about workplace conditions were illegally terminated, creating a new wrinkle for employers to consider when crafting social media policies. This article from the Washington Post discusses the NLRB’s efforts and how businesses are trying to come up with policies that give them the flexibility to fire employees for inappropriate and potentially reputation-damaging online posts without leaving them open to retaliatory lawsuits.

Jeff Jarvis Argues in Favor of Online Sharing in New Book

In a review of Jeff Jarvis’ new book “Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live,” the Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz discusses the positive aspects of sharing information online and why the famed journalism professor turned Web evangelist considers pending privacy legislation to be a mistake. In the review, Crovitz mentions Jarvis’ unique philosophy on sharing. Jarvis writes that social media adoption “will lead to what I call the doctrine of mutually assured humiliation. I won’t make fun of your silly picture if you don’t make fun of mine. Perhaps it will lead to a greater expectation of openness from corporations and transparency from government. Perhaps it will also lead to people being more connected, for they can no longer run away from each other as they’ll always be only a link or two apart.”

The Reputation.com team is at the DMA 2011 Expo this week. Stop by our booth to say hello to Noah, Polly, David and Owen.

Also make sure to catch Noah on the “Age of Customer Owned Data” panel on Monday at 4pm, joined by Epsilon, Eloqua, and the DMA!