Over at the official Facebook blog, they’re explaining some of last week’s changes–like the Web-wide “Like” button–and what, precisely, they involve. Facebook has an oft-stated company culture of being unafraid to change things, make mistakes, and then mop up afterwards–but wouldn’t everybody involved be happier if the company was a bit better at explaining things when they happen, rather then after users start to grouse?
Tag Archives | Privacy
Ten Countries Tell Google to Get Serious On Privacy
In an open letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, eight countries including Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom took the search provider to task over its recently released Google Buzz product. At issue was the way the feature automatically added people as “followers” without any consent.
Critics immediately slammed the company for the move, something the privacy officials signing the letter said ran afoul of privacy laws of many countries. “This was not the first time you have failed to take adequate account of privacy considerations when launching new services,” the letter reads.
These officials say the company completely ignored privacy issues that should have been “readily apparent.” Indeed, the method which the company launched the service seemed a tad bit underhanded, and forced the company to have its users reconfirm their privacy status.
Also mentioned in the letter was Google Street View — which especially in the EU stirred concerns that it was not taking enough into account for the privacy and safety of those photographed.
Google’s response? That they have discussed these issues repeatedly “and have no further comment on the matter.”
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Supreme Court to Hear 'Sexting' Case
The Supreme Court today is set to hear arguments surrounding a case involving so-called ‘sexting’ on a company-owned pager, of which the decision they make could have broad implications for employee privacy rights in the workplace.
California SWAT Sergeant Jeff Quon was given a pager by his employer, the Ontario, Calif. police department. While the device was meant for work use, Quon was found to have sent sexually-charged text messages to both his wife and his mistress.
Apparently, Quon sent so many texts that it triggered overage charges and an investigation into excessive texting within the department. While Quon did pay for the overage charges out of his own pocket, he complained that he thought the message content was confidential.
He and his mistress — a dispatcher — sued the department and the paging company over privacy violations, as well as another police officer for an unrelated matter. A lower court decided in favor of the employees in 2008, but the defendants appealed.
Now the Supreme Court will hear the case, which could vastly affect employee rights. As technology becomes more prevalent allowing employees to work from anywhere, work-provided electronics are seeing more and more personal use. While many companies provide clear-cut policies on personal use, some do not.
Some go as far as to use the information they find by peering onto their employee’s devices as grounds for termination. But in recent court cases, the courts have sided with the employees generally, making it hard for employers to use damaging information they find.
Whatever the Supreme Court decides, I believe the responsibility lies on the employee. You should know your company’s policies on proper use of company-provided equipment. If that means no personal use, then for the sake of your job security, you buy your own.
However, if there is no policy — or lax polices as in the case of the Ontario Police Department — use your head. Sending a multitude of sexually explicit text messages is definitely not. Don’t be so damn stupid!
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MySpace User Data For Sale
Social networking just became a little riskier to your privacy. Information from MySpace is now for sale to third parties ranging from academics and analysts to marketers.
The data will include any activity or information that is attached to an account. That includes blog posts, location, photos, reviews, and status updates–among others. InfoChimps, an Austin Texas company that collects and sells structured data, is selling the data.
Of course, MySpace is perfectly within its rights to work with Infochimps, because it legally owns the data and the server logs. Users wave their right to privacy in exchange for free Web hosting and access to its social features. “Free” comes at a cost. Here’s snippet of what “they” know about you.
This is exactly the type of scenario that Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center warned of at a seminar about privacy in cloud computing last month. Except I wouldn’t have imagined that MySpace would be one of the really aggressive purveyors of personal data.
In his talk, Moglen advocated for the development of peer-to-peer social networks where users retain ownership of their data. His suggestion is looking more appealing (and prophetic) now that one of the biggest names in social networking has sold out its users’ privacy.
[NOTE: The original version of this story stated that MySpace was selling data; in fact, Infochimps is the seller, through a revenue-sharing agreement with MySpace. MySpace has released the following statement:
MySpace is not selling user data to Infochimps. MySpace provides developers, including companies such as Infochimps, with free access to publicly available real-time data (such as status updates, music, photos, videos) using our Real Time Stream feed. We have identified the need for third-party developers who can’t handle the size of our full feed to still have access to the data in a different format. For this reason Infochimps is offering developers a pre-packaged version of our Real Time Stream, as a value-added service.
More information is available at Infochimps’ blog.]
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The EU on Google Street View
The European Commission is telling Google that it needs to delete Google Street View imagery after six months to preserve the privacy of folks who may be seen in it. Google says its practice is to delete it after 12 months. I’m not sure if I completely understand the squabble, but this I know: The photo of my house in Google Street View is almost two years old. (It shows a “FOR SALE” sign that hasn’t been there since before I bought the place in June of 2008.)
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Google Buzz Controversy: Enter the Lawyers
When a meaningful number of consumers get irritated over the behavior of a large company, it’s a safe bet that one or more class-action lawsuits will follow. Latest case in point: Google Buzz is the subject of a complaint filed on behalf of a Florida woman. It contends that the new feature within Gmail violated her rights by disclosing personal information–her most-frequent e-mail contacts–without her permission.
At this point, I suspect that just about everybody–including Google–agrees that Google erred in not explaining Buzz more clearly and erring on the side of privacy. The company has since tweaked the service multiple times to get things right.
But was the Buzz launch merely unfortunately rocky, or should Google face legal consequences for its actions?
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A Simple Solution to Google Buzz’s Privacy Problem
The hubbub over Google Buzz’s conversion of your most frequent e-mail contacts into followers that anyone can see may die down eventually. Right now, though, it feels like the controversy is still heading towards the boiling point. And I think that Buzz’s basically confusing design isn’t helping matters.
If Search Engine Land has its facts straight–which it generally does–Google may end the melodrama decisively by simply removing Buzz from Gmail. That would be kind of stunning, since its integration into Gmail was one of the key features that Google trumpeted back on Tuesday when it announced Buzz. But stranger things have happened.
[UPDATE: Search Engine Land has updated its story, and says it didn’t mean to suggest that Horowitz said Google was considering completely detaching Buzz from Gmail over privacy concerns.]
I think it would be a shame if Google went that far, and I don’t see why Buzz can’t be a good citizen within the Gmail framework. The company has already fiddled with Buzz’s default settings a bit. But can’t it end the Buzz discontent immediately by making it a cakewalk to simply skip the conversion of e-mail contacts into followers in the first place? Make Buzz accounts start with you following nobody by default; allow the e-mail contact conversion as an option, with an excruciatingly clear explanation of what’s happening.
Do that, Google, and you could confidently tell the world that the default state of Buzz is privacy. And virtually everyone who made their most-contacted list public would be doing so intentionally.
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The Internet Spying Problem Back Here
US-China relations have turned contentious over the past several months, particularly in regard to the issue of “Internet freedom.” But neither nation has an unblemished record on Internet privacy, says Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center.
Last month, Google declared that it has discovered cyberattacks on its systems targeting Chinese humans rights workers, and made a decision to terminate the censored version of Google in China as a response.
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Is Cloud Computing Dangerous?
Cloud services like Facebook and Gmail might be “free,” but they carry an immense social cost, threatening the privacy and freedom of people who are too willing to trade it away for a perceived convenience, according to Eben Moglen, a Columbia University law professor and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center.
On Friday, Moglen was the guest speaker at a seminar at New York University that was sponsored by local technology organizations. Moglen criticized the hierarchical nature of the Web today, and called for a return to peer-to-peer communications.
“The underlying architecture of the Net is meant to be about peerage,” Moglen said. “…There was nothing on the technical side to prevent it, but there was a software problem.”
The client/server architecture has been locked in over the past two decades by Microsoft Windows, Moglen claimed. “Servers were given a lot of power, and clients had very little.”
Control has been moved even further away from the client (people) by cloud services, which can be physically located anywhere in the world where the provider chooses to operate, Moglen said. Privacy laws vary widely from country to country.
There was no discussion of social consequences on the part of computer sciences as they created technologies that comprise the Web, Moglen said. “The architecture is begging to be misused.” Cloud providers are the biggest offenders, in Moglen’s view.
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Facebook Trojan Brazen but Benign
This past weekend, a trojan mimicked Facebook’s native functionality and sent notifications on the user’s behalf. While Facebook says that the application was harmless, its ability to break through a boundary of trust on the platform alarmed me.