Facebook Inc. is finalizing a proposed settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that it engaged in deceptive behavior when changing its privacy settings...
The proposed settlement - which is awaiting final approval from the agency commissioners - would require Facebook to obtain "express affirmative consent" if Facebook makes "material retroactive changes," some of the people said.
Facebook would also have to "submit to independent privacy audits for 20 years," as Google now has to because of Buzz. Good stuff!
I agree that adding verbiage to a privacy policy and hoping people read it isn't enough. But what if all users were notified via email or message, or a pop-up screen when they signed on, that there's been a change? Or warned of such a coming change in advance? What other measures could companies take in these instances?
My big problem has been that "informing" consumers is a concept which lacks precision. I usually find out about changes to privacy policies by reading online that people are complaining. I then trace this back to the website, and ultimately to the page of the website where people have supposedly been "informed."
Writing something somewhere should not count as "giving people notice" or "informing" them.
Sounds to me like other companies (Facebook and Verizon, for example) need to look upon Google Buzz and that court order as a warning. But I'm not seeing much evidence that they are.
David Vladeck, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission, discusses the state of "Do Not Track" and the problem with consumer behavior tracking online.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
The US government is funding controversial projects to collect daily Internet activity, including Web searches, Twitter messages, Facebook and blog posts, and the digital location trails generated by billions of cellphones. Its goal is to map these interactions to predict social behavior, such as protests.
The US boasts a commitment to "Internet freedom," but in practice that commitment falls short. What Internet freedom really means is freedom of the mind.
Our online communications and privacy are being threatened by governments and corporations. Eben Moglen believes it's time for a People's Internet, made possible by "Freedom Boxes."
Ushering in a new era of cognitive computing systems, IBM announced today the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, a technology breakthrough that allows brands to crunch big data in record time to transform the way they engage clients in key functions such as customer service, marketing, and sales.
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