Entries Tagged 'Internet Safety' ↓
October 10th, 2011 | Facebook, Internet Safety, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, thoughts on Facebook’s power, teen online privacy, and why taking steps to protect yourself from junk e-mail can end up causing you to miss out on important privacy notices.
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A thief may have unwittingly outed himself when he snapped a picture using a stolen mobile phone. According to ABC News, “police in Henry County, Ga., said they now believe the thief grabbed [the victim's] cellphone, took a picture of himself and unwittingly uploaded it to her Facebook page, which automatically synced with her phone.” In this case, the woman’s predilection for sharing all of her cell phone photos online (something that we might usually recommend against) may have actually helped her.
In an op-ed for the National Times, Julian Lee writes that Facebook’s power is “unsettling,” saying “if Facebook was a government agency, its power would be as undisputed as it would be frightening.” Lee’s incisive commentary points out that legal protections lag far behind technology and that Web companies like Facebook have a practically unchecked ability to enact new privacy-invasive features with little fear of punishment. At the end of his piece, Lee touches on the idea that “free” Internet service aren’t really free saying, “it’s the price we pay for such free services, the Faustian pact into which we have entered in order to survive in an age of constant connectivity where the tentacles of Facebook — with its ambition to be the “identity platform” — are extending to every corner of the internet.”
With its new “Frictionless Sharing” feature, Facebook has teamed up with third-party websites to stream a user’s Web habits directly to his or her profile. This feature, which is unnerving to many privacy advocates, is already in place with many news websites. But not all news organizations give users the same level of privacy protection. This article from Inside Facebook discusses all of the third-party news organizations using frictionless sharing and rates them according to how much control they offer users over sharing.
In its bid to buy a massive list of e-mail addresses from bankrupt book chain Borders, Barnes & Noble was forced to send an e-mail to Borders’ customers giving them 15 days to opt out of sharing information with the new company. Ironically, as Forbes’ Kashmir Hill explains, this disclosure e-mail might not make it to all customers if they’ve taken certain steps to protect their privacy. Hill writes that “most folks who signed up for Borders accounts, or any company account, usually hand over their ‘junk e-mail address.’”
Because these aren’t the accounts people usually check (in order to keep them from massive amounts of spam), they might miss the notice. Similarly, Hill notes that because she had unsubscribed from Borders e-mail list long ago: “I was unsubscribed from a future email that would tell me that my data would be sold to another company.” In both of these cases, the company isn’t legally in the wrong, but the user still doesn’t get the disclosure, demonstrating the complexity of online privacy protections.
In this video interview with CBS News, Yahoo! Web Life Editor Heather Cabot talks about a new survey that shows kids are much savvier about online privacy than parents give them credit for, while also offering advice about “how parents can drive home the message home about the importance of online privacy.”
October 6th, 2011 | Facebook, Internet Safety, Parenting, Privacy | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, teens and young adults talk about having their online accounts hacked, Facebook readies its new design rollout, and an artist uses trash to teach about personal privacy violations.
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A new study from the AP and MTV reveals that a large percentage of teens (30%) have had their online accounts hacked, more than double the number from 2009. More distressing is the apparent attitude regarding hacking. The Wall Street Journal quotes a handful of teens and young adults who treat hacking as no big deal. Some say it’s only for fun and that they know who is doing it, so it’s okay. Others, however, are distressed by the hacking. The survey showed that 46% of respondents were upset by a hacking attack and concerned about how it might affect their image.
The Los Angeles Times has an article on Facebook’s new-look profiles and how users can protect their privacy once the new design rolls out. The article goes into detail on how some of the new tweaks may compromise privacy, including the little-known fact that current privacy settings aren’t automatically applied to old posts that will appear on user’s timelines.
A street artist named XVALA has taken to Silicon Valley to make a statement about information sharing and personal privacy violations. According to the Los Angeles Times, “the first of the series, ‘Mark Zuckerberg’s Not Very Well Hung Hanger,’ features a wire coat hanger taken from Zuckerberg’s trash can. XVALA bent the hanger by hand to show Zuckerberg’s ‘manhood’ and painted it blue, the color of Facebook’s logo.” In a statement, the artist said, “I wanted to ‘expose’ Zuckerberg like he exposes Facebook users, daily.”
In an article for PCWorld, Paul Venezia explains why it’s so difficult to keep social networking sites from tracking your browsing information across the web and some of the ways you can try to keep your personal data private. As Venezia explains, ”for normal people, this situation is extremely difficult to control,” which is why social media companies are so attractive to advertisers. The data on the profile itself, paired with browsing information, is more than enough to learn an individual’s entire life story.
Inside Facebook has an insightful article with Facebook product manager Carl Sjogreen about the company’s new-look profiles and some of the safety measures in place to prevent application developers from using the “Frictionless Sharing” Open Graph platform to send out spam messages. Facebook’s balancing act between consumers and app developers is tricky, but could be very valuable for the company.
As Inside Facebook writes, “Facebook is preparing to make a major change to how users express themselves with the rollout of Timeline. It will need to clearly communicate the privacy implications of ready access to old content in order to avoid backlash. It will also need to strike a proper balance between a clean user experience and an attractive Open Graph application development Platform. If Facebook can navigate these two pitfalls, Timeline could become the richest way to represent one’s identity online.”
September 15th, 2011 | Internet Safety, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the differences between European and American privacy policies, a congressional privacy hearing, why “Daily Deals” might be bad for small businesses, and one man’s experience writing about the hacker collective Anonymous.
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In an interesting segment for Marketplace radio, Paul Schwartz, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, talks about the differences between European and American privacy policies and how the U.S. could learn from Europe’s more comprehensive privacy laws.
USA Today tech reporter Byron Acohido writes that consumer privacy groups are upset with Rep. Mary Bono Mack’s planned congressional hearing today to discuss Internet privacy issues. According to the report, critics are concerned that the hearing “is being staged to give short shrift to how Europe has championed privacy rights for individual citizens” and that the hearing has an industry-focused agenda that doesn’t adequately take into account consumer concerns. In her defense, Bono Mack says she is trying to find “a sweet spot between too much regulation and no regulation at all,” a tricky balancing act that has plagued numerous privacy proposals.
Econsultancy shares the findings of a new MIT Technology Review report that shows how a “Daily Deal” offering can negatively impact a business’ online reputation on consumer review websites. According to the report, “ Groupon deal seems to have an adverse impact on reputation as measured by Yelp ratings. Their analysis shows that while the number of reviews increases signifificantly due to daily deals, average rating scores from reviewers who mention daily deals are about 10% lower than scores of their peers.” These findings suggest that small business owners should be very careful about how they use “Daily Deal” services, particularly with regard to their online reputations.
In a Huffington Post column, Cole Stryker talks about the many threats he’s received from the hacker group Anonymous following the publication of his book “Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan’s Army Conquered the Web.” Stryker writes that he wasn’t, and still isn’t, afraid of Anonymous, writing that the group is “actually pretty ineffectual when you don’t give them the tools they need to engage in ‘life-ruining tactics,’ also known as data mining or social engineering. There are no nude pics of me being passed around on 4chan because there are no nude pics of me anywhere.”
September 14th, 2011 | CyberBullying, Facebook, Internet Safety, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, an A-List starlet becomes the victim of an embarrassing cell phone hack, an Internet troll is given a jail sentence for mocking dead teens online, and FOSI has some uplifting information on teens and online safety.
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TMZ reports that A-List actress Scarlett Johansson is seeking assistance from the FBI to help track down the individual responsible for hacking into her cell phone and posting self-taken nude photos online. Johansson isn’t the first celebrity to have nude photos wind up online. Actresses Vanessa Hudgens and Jessica Alba also have been the victims of hackers seeking out illicit images.
A new survey from the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) found that 96% of parents have had a conversation with their kids about what they should and should not do online. The survey also revealed that 93% of parents set rules about Internet use. These findings suggest that more parents are becoming aware of the importance of online safety issues and taking smart, proactive steps to protect their kids online.
Facebook representatives are scheduled to appear before a congressional hearing today on the subject of children’s online safety. According to CBS News, “The appearance by Facebook officials follows one last week by Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, who also met with members of Congress about privacy issues.” At issue is how websites track information about Internet users while they browse the Web. Several members of Congress believe that there should be laws in place to prevent Web companies from collecting data on children. Web companies have disagreed with this stance, arguing that legislation will be too unwieldy.
Yesterday, Facebook announced a new privacy feature that is similar in function to Google+’s “Social Circles” feature. According to the Washington Post, “the optional features include smart lists, which automatically group a users’ friends into work, school, family and location-based groups, which can be edited by the user.” Facebook’s recent push to offer more privacy controls comes on the heels of Google’s launch of Google+, which was widely praised for its intuitive privacy settings.
In the U.K., a 25-year-old man has been jailed for 18 weeks after he was arrested for sending mocking messages to the families of two dead teenagers online. The man, who did not know the victims and lived alone, pleaded guilty to two counts of sending malicious communications. In his ruling, the judge stated that the offenses were so serious that “only a custodial sentence could be justified.” As part of the sentence, the man must also refrain from using social networking websites for five years and inform police when he acquires a new computer or web-enabled phone.
August 31st, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Internet Safety, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Student Online Reputation, Twitter | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a poorly planned social media promotion by Qantas, why you should secure your Google account, the social media savvy of Canadian teens, and an interesting case involving sexy photos on a stolen laptop.
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Qantas sheepishly apologized to the public after the Australian airline chose a picture of two men wearing blackface as the winner of a promotional contest. According to the Daily Mail, “The airline had offered two tickets to the deciding game of the Bledisloe Cup between Australia and New Zealand national rugby teams in Brisbane on Saturday night… The tickets were awarded to two Wallabies fans who dressed up in ‘afro’ wigs, daubed black paint on their faces and wore the Australian rugby green-and-gold uniform. The pair said they were copying their ‘favourite player’, Fijian-born flanker Wallabies flanker Radike Samo, by blacking up their faces, arms and legs.” While Samo himself was not offended by the fans, even posing for a picture with them, members of the public expressed outrage at the “racist” photos, leading Qantas to remove the offending tweet and issue an apology.
From Gmail to Google Reader, avid Google users may have a lot of information tied up in their Google accounts. As Angela West at PCWorld explains, “For many of us, a Gmail password is not just a Gmail password. It’s a passport to our Google Docs account, our AdWords campaigns, our personal Google calendars, Google Docs, and more. That’s not to mention access to Gmail itself, through which someone can find tax returns, private email conversations, and other data to pull off identity or credit card theft. If you are using Google business apps, you risk damage to your company if staff members’ accounts are insecure.”
In the rest of her article, West offers four tips on how to secure your Google account from hackers and keep your personal information protected.
Younger Canadian social media users are more likely to share content online, but they are also more likely to use privacy filters to protect their content. Quoting a CBC report, “a study released on Aug. 25 by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner found those aged 18 to 34 are more likely to use social media sites, but are also more likely to be aware of and to use restrictive privacy controls compared to older Canadians.” Just because teens are digital natives, however, doesn’t mean they are always using social media safely. As one researcher explains, “although teens may be more familiar with the technology, they are also less mature and more likely to take risks in terms of what they post.”
Forbes privacy blogger Kashmir Hill writes about an interesting new court case that delves into some complex privacy issues. The case involves a school teacher who unknowingly purchased a stolen laptop from a student. The teacher then used the laptop to share sexually explicit material with her long-distance boyfriend. When the school tracked the laptop using remote access software, they were able to gain access to the explicit content and shared it with police. The police then contacted the teacher over the laptop and bullied her about the pictures. Now, the teacher is suing the school and police department for an invasion of privacy in sharing the photos. Traditionally, content on a stolen piece of property would not be protected, but because the teacher was unaware that the laptop was stolen, a judge has decided to let the case proceed.