Monday, October 19, 2009
When 2+2 Equals a Privacy Question
TIME to revisit the always compelling–and often disconcerting–debate over digital privacy.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Oklahoma Abortion Law’s Online-Publication Rules Come Under Fire
A new Oklahoma law that will allow the state to publish detailed information about abortion patients online has created uproar from critics who view it as a blow to women’s rights and is providing the latest fodder in the debate over online-data privacy.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Marketing on Facebook Requires a Delicate Balance
Despite growing concerns about online privacy on social networks such as Facebook, marketers at the Social Data Summit in New York on Thursday professed enthusiasm for social media marketing.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Netflix’s Impending (But Still Avoidable) Multi-Million Dollar Privacy Blunder
Today brings news relating to one of the central examples in my paper: Netflix has announced plans to commit a privacy blunder that could cost it millions of dollars in fines and civil damages
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Twitter: A Vampire That Can Legally Suck the Life Out of You
Oh, those clever birds at Twitter. When the microblogging service announced recent changes to its terms of service, its executives knew exactly how to spin the news.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Not-So-Anonymous Speech: How to Get Yourself Unmasked Online
There have been a few cases recently that have involved previously-anonymous commenters getting outed by the courts. Where’s the line between free speech and getting unmasked?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
FTC to Hold Privacy Roundtables
The Federal Trade Commission is planning three public discussions, starting in December, devoted to technology and consumer privacy.
According to the FTC, the roundtables will address topics such as social networking, cloud computing, online advertising and mobile marketing, the goal being “to determine how best to protect consumer privacy while supporting beneficial uses of the information and technological innovation.”
Monday, September 14, 2009
What Information Is “Personally Identifiable”?
Sounds like Mr. X is pretty anonymous, right? Not if you’re Latanya Sweeney, a Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor who showed in 1997 that this information was enough to pin down Mr. X’s more familiar identity–William Weld, the governor of Massachusetts throughout the 1990s.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Privacy Groups Urge Congress to Toughen Up on Online Ads
Ten privacy groups urged Congress on Tuesday to take greater steps to limit advertising that tracks consumers’ behavior online.
The coalition, which included the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Consumers Union and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, singled out behavioral advertising, in which Internet users are tracked, analyzed and served ads based on the information gleaned from their movements, in its recommendations.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Court Stiffs Veterans Caught in Privacy Breach
Veterans suffering anxiety and paranoia following the theft of a government hard drive containing the medical histories and Social Security numbers of 198,000 of their brethren cannot recover financial damages, a federal appeals court says.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Facebook Hit by Privacy Blow
European privacy regulators could be about to throw a spanner into the works of attempts by social networking sites such as Facebook to find new ways to increase profits as they try to restrict the way internet groups release personal data.
Friday, March 6, 2009
If Authorities Want Your Location Data, They’re Going to Have to Friend You on Latitude Like Everyone Else
Those who are deeply disturbed about the rise in location-based applications and services and their impacts on personal privacy can breath a small sigh of relief tonight. Google, which recently entered the space with its Latitude location network feature, has agreed to take a stand for user location privacy, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Google Wins Boring Lawsuit
A federal judge dismissed a Pittsburgh couple’s suit against Google, rejecting their claim that the Internet giant’s Street View feature violated their privacy.
Google Maps’s Street View, which launched in 2007, shows street-level maps of some cities. The couple, Christine and Aaron Boring, sued Google in April (our Law Blog colleagues wrote about it), accusing it of negligence, unjust enrichment and trespassing, in addition to privacy violation, because photos of their home appeared in Street View.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The Cellphone, Navigating Our Lives
The cellphone is the world’s most ubiquitous computer. With the dominance of the cellphone, a new metaphor is emerging for how we organize, find and use information. That metaphor is the map.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Do You Want a New Internet?
The lack of security and privacy online has some technology experts pushing for a do-over on the Internet, according to a Sunday Week in Review article in the New York Times.
“What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a ‘gated community’ where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety,” writes John Markoff.
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