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!

In today’s Quick Hits, Facebook gets heat from Congress and Spotify gets heat from Facebook users. Meanwhile, Hollywood tries to capitalize on Facebook’s popularity and a survey shows the corporate security risks involving social media use.

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Congress Asks FTC to Investigate Facebook Tracking Cookies

Congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton have asked the FTC to investigate Facebook following reports that the company was tracking users even while they were logged off of the service. In a statement, Markey and Barton wrote, “as co-Chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, we believe that tracking user behavior without their consent or knowledge raises serious privacy concerns. When users log out of Facebook, they are under the expectation that Facebook is no longer monitoring their activities. We believe this impression should be the reality. Facebook users should not be tracked without their permission.” In response, Facebook changed the log-out process so that it doesn’t store cookies for logged-out users.

Warner Bros Web Series Incorporates Facebook User Data Into the Story

In an interesting experiment, director McG is incorporating Facebook data into his new teen-oriented web series “Aim High.” According to McG, the series will pull data from a user’s profile to augment the series and give it a personal touch. Quoting McG, “music that the characters are listening to comes from your playlist, pictures on the walls, TV screens and picture frames inside the show are from your profile.” The planned “social series” is an attempt by Hollywood studios to tap into the popularity of social media technology, which has been siphoning viewers from TV and films.

Spotify Backtracks on Facebook-Only Authentication, Adds Private Listening Mode

Spotify users were in an uproar this week when the company announced that it was only allowing users to log-in to the service via Facebook. This move was widely criticized as it made a user’s Spotify playlist instantly accessible to Facebook friends via Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” feature. Because users want to keep their listening preferences private, Spotify backed off and created a private listening mode. So, while you still have to log-in to the site through Facebook, you don’t have to share your listening stream publicly.

Social Media Use Increases Corporate Security Risks

According to a new global study by the Ponemon Institute, more than half of the 4,640 organizations polled indicated an increase in computer attacks as a result of workers using social networks. According to the study, “about a quarter of those respondents said the attacks rose by more than 50 percent” due to social media. The attacks mostly came via “social engineering,” which involves a deliberate attempt to target an individual using information in their profile to gain their trust and get them to click on a malicious link.

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about how to manage your privacy on the new Facebook, the problem with firing employees over social media, and actress Scarlett Johansson’s first official response to her recent nude photo scandal.

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Protecting Your Privacy on the New Facebook

As Facebook’s massive redesign rolls out to the site’s more than 800 million users in the coming weeks, it is important that users consider how the change will affect their personal privacy. This article from Mashable details how to manage all of the new features on Facebook, including advice on how to keep old embarrassing information doesn’t pop up on your Timeline, how to prevent Facebook’s “Frictionless Sharing” from sharing too much of your content, and how to double-check which apps are allowed to share information on your profile.

Employers Confused Over Whether They Can Fire Employees for Social Media

This article from Reuters discusses how employers are struggling to come up with social media policies that allow them to terminate employees for inappropriate online activity. Because certain negative speech is protected, mainly comments about working conditions made to other employees, the National Labor Relations Board has forced companies to rehire employees that they fired for online comments.

Woman Uses Facebook Baby Photos in Bizarre Revenge Ploy

Many parents like to share pictures of their babies online, but this story may give them pause. Yahoo Shine has the bizarre story of one woman who downloaded pictures of her friend’s baby and passed them off as pictures of her own child in order to get back at an ex-boyfriend. The woman, who told her ex that the child was his, was eventually exposed when a mutual friend of the couple recognized the baby as someone else’s child. Following the strange revenge scheme, the woman was fired from her job as a school teacher.

Schools Weigh Risk of Facebook

The Christian Science Monitor reports how schools across the country are struggling to balance the benefits of social media technology, such as enhanced communication between parents, teachers, and students, with the risks, namely cyber-bullying. The article discusses the issue in the context of a recent Missouri law that limits social media contact between teachers and students. Prior to revisions to the law, the Missouri proposal was criticized for being overly broad and potentially banning teachers from using social media technology at all.

Scarlett Johansson Calls Nude Photo Leak “Unjust”

Scarlett Johansson has spoken out about her recent nude photo scandal, calling the invasion of privacy “unjust” and “wrong.” Following the photo leak, Johansson and her attorneys worked quickly to have the photos removed from the top gossip sites where they appeared, but the images spread far and wide so quickly that it’s likely impossible for them to ever be fully removed from the Internet.

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook and Spotify’s close partnership, how one mom’s Facebook update ruined her sons’ football season, and the epidemic problem of cyberbullying.

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Spotify Users Angry Over Forced Facebook Integration

Spotify, once the envy of all music sharing sites for its positive press coverage and close partnership with Facebook, is on the defensive after making a change that requires users to log-in to the service using Facebook. People don’t necessarily want to share what they’re listening to on Spotify, which is what they’d have to do thanks to Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” experience. Since the announcement, Spotify founder Daniel Ek has spent much time on Twitter defending the decision, but also acknowledging the potential for further changes based on feedback.

Maintaining Privacy on “Free” Facebook

In an op-ed for Fox News, John Quain criticizes Facebook’s recent “convoluted, confused, and cluttered update,” writing that, while Facebook is a free service, it actually requires users to give up information about themselves to make money. Quain also points out that quitting Facebook offers no guarantee of privacy.

“The problem is that even if you abandon Facebook, others could be tagging you in photos, putting personal information about you online, and sharing it all with their 500 closest friends. Potential employers — and dates — can then use that information against you without your knowledge. One example: I’ve been tagged in photos on Facebook that I can’t delete or edit, even though at least one photo isn’t even of me (now people think I was at an event I didn’t attend).”

Facebook Defends Tracking Data From Logged-Out Users

Recently, Australian tech developer Nik Cubrilovic discovered that Facebook was tracking data about users after they had logged out of the site. According to the Wall Street Journal, “When you log in to Facebook or visit Facebook.com without logging in, the site places small files called ‘cookies’ on your computer. Some of these cookies remain on your computer even after you log out, and then whenever you visit a site that connects to Facebook – such as those with a ‘Like’ button – information from those cookies is sent back to Facebook, providing a record of where you’ve been on the Web.” The ubiquity of the “like” button on the Web means that Facebook is able to collect a considerable amount of data from users even while they’re not on the site.

Mom’s Facebook Update Costs Her Sons’ Football Team Three Wins

In an unusual story, a Tennessee mom is the center of a high school sports controversy after a Facebook update about her sons led to the revelation of the boys’ ineligibility to play and the team’s subsequent forfeiture of three wins. According to The Tennessean, the mom made a comment about how her sons leave messy rooms after only being in town for the weekend. The problem is that the mom lives in a different county. According to the TSSAA’s bylines, the boys weren’t allowed eligibility because the family continued “to maintain a previous residence for the residential purposes of that family or any of its members.”

Poll Shows Over Half of Teens the Victim of Online Bullies

According to a new MTV-AP poll, 56% of teens have been the victim of some form of online bullying or harassment. Three-quarters of respondents also said that online bullying was a serious problem, demonstrating a high level of awareness about the issue. This article from the Boston Globe discusses the poll and shares some examples of online bullying.