Entries Tagged 'Careers' ↓
September 26th, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook’s dramatic recent changes, why it can be difficult to develop effective social media policies, and concern on Capitol Hill over OnStar’s recent privacy policy tweaks.
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One of Facebook’s new changes following its dramatic redesign is a feature called “frictionless sharing.” The idea behind frictionless sharing is that users can allow certain online activities to be shared with friends without manually updating their profiles. However, as this PCWorld article points out, frictionless sharing raises some very serious privacy concerns. Quoting the article, “The new functionality is reminiscent of Beacon, Facebook’s now defunct over-sharing system that landed the social network in hot water in 2007. Under the Beacon plan, if you bought movie tickets from the Fandango site, say, Facebook would alert your Facebook friends.”
Frictionless sharing is different than Beacon, because it requires explicit authorization before sharing info, but the same issue applies. You don’t want to share certain information on Facebook, but Facebook continues to make it easier and easier to share.
The Detroit Free Press has a nice write-up of Facebook’s recent design overhaul and what it means for users. In the article, Mark Smith touches on many possible privacy issues related to the makeover and also how users can protect themselves from sharing too much sensitive data online.
To protect their bottom lines, companies need to develop smart social media policies for employees. But many companies are having a hard time coming up with policies that don’t restrict employees’ freedom of speech, leading to several cases in which the National Labor Relations Board has helped employees who were fired for online comments regain their employment. This article from ABC News discusses the NLRB’s efforts to help employees who have been wrongfully terminated as well as companies who need to establish social media policies as part of a risk management strategy.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has been active in consumer privacy issues in Congress, has called for the FTC to launch an investigation into OnStar and the company’s recent privacy policy changes. Last week, OnStar made a switch to its privacy policy that gave the company a lot more room to share customer data with third-parties.
An Illinois couple has asked Facebook (all 800 million members) to help them pick a name for their unborn child. Perhaps anticipating that the Web could come up with something terrible, they have set-up a poll with their four favorite names and asked for votes. The four choices are McKenna, Madelyn, Addilyne, and Emily.
September 19th, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new social scoring company, ponder our current privacy landscape, and discuss Facebook’s new subscribe feature.
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According to Forbes, “a new professional job search engine built on Facebook data called Identified, is launching in public beta Monday with technology for ranking people on a scale of 0 to 100, aiming to bring better results for job seekers and recruiters.” The goal of Identified is to parse an individual’s Facebook profile for relevant professional information and assign them a score that makes it easier for recruiters to find qualified job candidates. One possible issue with the service is that an individual’s rank is made public, meaning potential reputation damage for someone with a low number. Additionally, Identified further muddles the line between private and public on Facebook, making online reputation management even more important than ever.
Internet safety expert Larry Magid writes that Facebook’s new Twitter-like subscribe feature, which allows a Facebook user to follow someone’s updates without “friending” them, will help users weed out the number of “friends” they have online that they don’t actually know in real life. Magid argues that the subscribe function will help people sort out friends from acquaintances.
The Chicago Sun-Times has a strong op-ed discussing the upcoming Supreme Court case over whether police can surreptitiously monitor an individual’s location using GPS technology and the general state of privacy in society. The Sun-Times argues that “it’s important for citizens to speak up to prevent a loss of privacy before no privacy becomes standard practice.”
The San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting feature on Hank Asher – a former drug smuggler turned data mining expert and successful entrepreneur. A snippet from the Chronicle article sums up Asher’s work: “Asher’s field is data fusion, the collecting of bits of information about people and businesses from thousands of data bases and linking them to create a previously unseen mosaic: typing in three Zip codes and getting a list of people who’ve lived in all three, where they work and what they drive, for instance.” Asher often works with law enforcement agencies on apprehending criminals, but his work has faced criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union and others for violating personal privacy rights.
The new CBS drama Person of Interest shows how surveillance is a part of our everyday lives, from closed circuit cameras to online updates. This feature from CNET discusses the new show and also includes a comprehensive wrap-up of the most pertinent privacy news from the last few months.
September 8th, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research, Student Online Reputation | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new Microsoft study, a huge privacy breach involving 20,000 hospital patients, and one Applebee’s worker’s stand for self-expression online.
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A new Microsoft study shows that “before posting personal information online, more than half of U.S. teens and parents don’t truly consider the potential consequences of their actions.” The study also showed that while teens recognize “the importance of limiting what they share online,” they still reveal more personal data than their parents and that 6 in 10 teens admit to having “friends” online that they have never met in real life. This data reveals the importance of online reputation management and digital citizenship – two important issues that Microsoft is addressing through a new white paper called “Fostering Digital Citizenship” and a Teen Reputation Guide.
The New York Times reports that “a medical privacy breach at Stanford University’s hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., led to the public posting of medical records for 20,000 emergency room patients, including names and diagnosis codes, on a commercial Web site for nearly a year.” This isn’t the first time that medical data has been exposed online. The Times writes that “records compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services reveal that personal medical data for more than 11 million people has been improperly exposed during the last two years alone.”
An Applebee’s worker claims that his job has been threatened by his refusal to sign an agreement from his employer that restricts his right to post negative content about Applebee’s online. The man, who has had no problems with the company in the past, says that he is concerned the agreement would stifle his freedom of expression. The Applebee’s story comes at an interesting time. The National Labor Relations Board recently issued a report outlining when companies can and can’t fire employees for their online profiles and a judge ruled that several non-profit employees were unjustly fired for their Facebook comments.
The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) requires companies to block children under the age of 13 from accessing their websites. But this is often easier said than done, especially if you’re Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website. This article from ZDNet discusses how Facebook approaches the problem and why the website claims that “it is difficult is to implement age restrictions on the Internet and that there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don’t circumvent a system or lie about their age.”
New York Times tech reporter Jenna Wortham writes about a new mobile app called Blendr, which combines social networking with location check-in technology to help users “find someone to meet nearby, right now.” The app includes some privacy restrictions, including the ability to narrowly tailor what type of person can access one’s profile, but it is still likely something that a privacy-conscious individual would be leery to use. Nevertheless, the creator of Blendr’s previous mobile app Grindr (which offers a similar service for the gay community) has been very successful with 2.6 million users, proving the viability of the concept.
September 1st, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we have two stories on the risky relationship between teachers and social networking as well as some information on Internet tracking, location tracking, and which of your Facebook friends is most likely to expose your private information.
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A UK sex-ed teacher was found guilty of “unacceptable professional conduct” after students discovered him in an adult video online. The teacher, who also worked as a stripper using a different name, was temporarily suspended pending a hearing, but is still allowed to teach. The school council acknowledged his argument that his personal life has no bearing on his professional qualifications as a teacher, but insisted that he discontinue his extracurricular activities anyway in keeping with the “widely held public view that such work is not acceptable conduct for a teacher.”
The New York Daily News reports that, “a new policy in the Dayton Public School systems bars instructors from friending their students on Facebook, along with instant messaging or texting with the kids.” This policy echos a similar proposition from the state of Missouri, which banned teachers from interacting with students online. Last week, that law was temporarily halted by a federal judge. The difference between the Dayton policy and the state-wide Missouri law is that the Dayton policy only extended to the school district and that it specifically barred “friending,” as opposed to all online contact.
Some of your friends are more apt to gossip than others, but how can you be sure which ones might spill your secrets? The Globe and Mail shares a report from Pritam Gundecha at Arizona State University. According to Gundecha’s analysis, you should look at what your friend is sharing to help cue you as to their privacy awareness. For example, “around 80 per cent of users are happy to disclose their gender, but less than 1 per cent share their home address. That suggests people publicizing their address aren’t particularly privacy-conscious and you might want to avoid them.”
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) recently released a button that advertisers can place in their ads that allows users to opt-out of Internet tracking. The do not track button is one of several self-regulatory efforts aimed at preventing legislative action against online trackers. However, the button may not be effective and has already seen criticism from consumer privacy groups. According to The Street, Carmen Balber, Washington director for Consumer Watchdog, criticized the program saying, ”this industry program is another example of the failure of self-regulation to protect consumers from unwanted monitoring of every move they make on the internet and their mobile devices.”
CNET’s Declan McCullagh reports that security researcher Samy Kamkar has discovered that Microsoft is tracking users’ locations via software in its mobile devices. Quoting CNET, “the Camera application sends the device’s location–complete with latitude and longitude, a unique ID, and nearby Wi-Fi access points–to Microsoft even when the user has not given the app permission to do so.” Microsoft hasn’t commented on the claim.
August 16th, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about mistakes job seekers make online as well as some of the dumb things people do on Facebook.
Dianne Stafford, the careers columnist for the Kansas City Star, wonders why job seekers don’t spend more time on their online reputations. In a column, Stafford writes, “Job recruiters Google your name. They look for you on Facebook. They check out your LinkedIn profile and read what others say about you. They research Internet user groups and join discussions.” Stafford urges job seekers to “do everything in their power to present a polished, professional image online.”
A UK man is facing 15 months in jail after spending “up to 18 hours a day” trolling Facebook for information that helped him crack into his neighbors’ online bank accounts. According to the Telegraph, the man stole “more than £35,000 over two years” by using the password reset function at a victim’s online bank. The fraudster accessed information to answer the bank’s security question by looking on Facebook and other social media websites.
Following an embarrassing incident in which Google collected Wi-Fi data via its Street View vehicles, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office pushed the company to adopt better privacy safeguards. In the last year, Google has taken steps to meet these recommendations, but the ICO is asking for more. According to an ICO statement,”the ICO has now asked the company to go further to enhance privacy, including ensuring that users are given more information about the privacy aspects of Google products.” Specifically, the ICO recommended Google have a “privacy story” for each of its products, so that people understand how the service impacts their personal information.
AllFacebook.com has an article on the “7 Stupidest Mistakes We Keep Seeing on Facebook.” The article features such “stupid mistakes” as sharing your entire birthdate, ignoring privacy controls, and announcing when you’re going on vacation. It’s an insightful read for those who are not quite so Facebook savvy.