Posts tagged privacy
“ So, each and every Internet user, were they to read every privacy policy on every website they visit would spend 25 days out of the year just reading privacy policies! If it was your job to read privacy policies for 8 hours per day, it would take you 76 work days to complete the task. Nationalized, that’s 53.8 BILLION HOURS of time required to read privacy policies.”
“ With regard to category interests, the demographic profiles easily pick up on things like travel searches. Our own Ryan Paul said Google captured him perfectly, with categories about computers and electronics, video games, and cats.”
Ars Technica editors share their Google ad preferences.
To be fair, “computers and electronics, video games, and cats” probably describes 75% of the internet.
To be unfair, Google pegs me as someone interested in “CD Audio Shopping”.
Green party politician Malte Spitz sued to have German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom hand over six months of his phone data that he then made available to ZEIT ONLINE. We combined this geolocation data with information relating to his life as a politician, such as Twitter feeds, blog entries and websites, all of which is all freely available on the internet. By pushing the play button, you will set off on a trip through Malte Spitz’s life.
A German politician becomes his own Big Brother to demonstrate the importance of data piracy. (Via Flowing Data)
What is this?
This site randomly displays the private phone numbers of unsuspecting Facebook users.
How does it work?
There are uncountable numbers of groups on Facebook called “lost my phone!!!!! need ur numbers!!!!!” or something like that. Most of them are marked as ‘public’, or ‘visible to everyone’. A lot of folks don’t understand what that means in Facebook’s context — to Facebook, ‘everyone’ means everyone in the world, whether they’re a Facebook member or not. That includes automated programs like Evil, as well as search engines.
(Via Tom Scott, Via Huffington Post)
Germany Asks Google to Surrender Private Data
This will be interesting to watch.
Google head Eric Schmidt recently said that having people’s private data in their hands was better than a government. Google says they follow local laws, but their China decision indicates that they’ll pick up and leave when their principles are violated (or firewalls.)
This case should be interesting, and a landmark, for many reasons:
- The data in question Google collected by snooping on personal WiFi networks while collecting images for Street View. This is in violation of Germany’s privacy laws, not to mention ethically iffy (creepy, at least.)
- The data is that of Google users, we can safely assume based on their ubiquity. So handing it back rather than just deleting it might violate some sort of ethical principle Google has; at the least it sets a dangerous precedent for them: they’ll have handed over personal data to a government because of a legal request.
- Google snooped on networks everywhere Street View exists! Is your house on Street View? Is your wifi network open? Google might have some traffic of yours… Other states could just as easily request this data from Google, especially if they hand it over to Germany. So the stakes are high if they hand it over.
- What happens if Google doesn’t surrender it? Can they afford to pull out of Germany? With the recent sell-off of GOOG shares, this doesn’t seem like the greatest idea.
Thoughts?
Google Renews Its Privacy/Profit Vows
Google just summed up it’s “privacy principles” with five bullets:
- Use information to provide our users with valuable products and services.
- Develop products that reflect strong privacy standards and practices.
- Make the collection of personal information transparent.
- Give users meaningful choices to protect their privacy.
- Be a responsible steward of the information we hold.
This is why treaties are written in French. We have no idea to whom those “products and services” are valuable. Google? Advertisers? Users? I’m sure they’d say all three.
Secret Societies Not-So-Secret, Thanks to Facebook's Privacy Snafu
Apart from the various Skull & Bones regalia lining the walls of the cabin, there isn’t much in Castro’s photos that you wouldn’t encounter at a typical college house party. The alleged Skull & Bones members appear in the pictures along with discarded cans of Keystone Light, liquor bottles, and a copy of michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
