Privacy
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SAN FRANCISCO--California's Office of the Attorney General has gotten agreements from Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, and Research In Motion to improve privacy protections on mobile apps. The companies will require developers to include privacy policies in their apps so that users will be informed about the data that apps will access, use, and share before they download the apps, California Attorney General Kamal Harris said today in a news conference. The news follows disclosure that some mobile apps were using address book data without user notification or permission.
Tech firms agree to privacy protections for mobile apps | InSecurity Complex - CNET News
Mobile application marketplaces, developers and service providers need to do a better job of protecting children’s privacy, according to an Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report released Thursday. The report was based on an FTC survey that found mobile apps for children aren’t upfront about what they’re doing with user data. “At the FTC, one of our highest priorities is protecting children’s privacy, and parents deserve the tools to help them do that,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in a statement. “Right now, it is almost impossible to figure out which apps collect data and what they do with it. The kids app ecosystem needs to wake up, and we want to work collaboratively with industry to help ensure parents have the information they need.”
FTC: Apps for Children Raise Privacy Concerns
Kids today enjoy unprecedented access to the Internet. In fact, children ages 8 to 18 spend an average of an hour and a half each day using a computer outside of schoolwork. While the Internet remains an incredible tool for learning and communicating, it has also become a way to track and target children’s online behavior.
The Do Not Track Kids Act | BlogHer
From day one, Mark Zuckerberg wanted Facebook to become a social utility. He succeeded. Facebook is now a utility for many. The problem with utilities is that they get regulated. Yesterday, I ranted about Facebook and “radical transparency.”
apophenia » Blog Archive » Facebook is a utility; utilities get
I’m sitting in a talk listening to Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare (that’s a photo of Dennis during the talk above). I’m sure you’ve heard of Foursquare, but with it we check in. In the building there are 101 other people checked in. Keep in mind this is NOT New York.
Privacy Reboot Needed — Scobleizer
Privacy and the Treacherous Middle Ground
I've always thought that in the venture capital business you either want to be very early or very late but not in the middle. I've also thought you either want to be a boutique with a few investors or an institution with many, but never in the middle with the bureaucracy of an institution but without the scale. And I think privacy is like that.
Facebook has endured another storm of PR hell in recent weeks, as mainstream media and the blogosphere pounds away at its "open disdain" for privacy. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's dorm-room IMs haven't helped . And the recent storm is only the latest in a long line of such storms, dating back to the site's very beginnings.
Facebook's Approach To Innovation Is The Secret To Its Success
How to Keep Your Privacy Safe(r) on Facebook - PCWorld
I'm not ready to give up on Facebook yet, like my friend Jason Perlow , but I can understand why he's sick to death of it. The simple truth is that Facebook takes lousy care of your personal information and is happy to sell it to advertisers at the drop of a hat. Now, I lead a pretty public life and I really don't care if anyone knows, for example, that I like watching Dr. Who ; reading the books of Terry Pratchett , or listening to alt.country music . But, I don't want people 'listening' in to my IM (instant message) conversations or Facebook quietly adding applications to my account without me knowing. Facebook is already full of games like Farmville and Mafia Wars that are always trying to get my attention when I have less than zero interest in them.Whether or not you agree with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg's assertion that the age of privacy is over , you can likely agree on one thing - Facebook privacy settings are not easily deciphered. If you're not sure whether you've sufficiently protected what you share on Facebook, then ReclaimPrivacy.org has a bookmarklet to help you be as private as you'd like. The bookmarklet (essentially a snippet of Javascript that executes from your browser bar) assesses your Facebook settings in a number of different areas.
Check Your Facebook Privacy Settings With ReclaimPrivacy
Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?' "And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.
The Day Has Come: Facebook Pushes People to Go Public
Facebook announced this morning that its 350 million users will be prompted to make their status messages and shared content publicly visible to the world at large and search engines. It's a move we expected but the language used 0 diggs digg in the announcement is near Orwellian. The company says the move is all about helping users protect their privacy and connect with other people, but the new default option is to change from "old settings" to becoming visible to "everyone." This is not what Facebook users signed up for. It's not about privacy at all, it's about increasing traffic and the visibility of activity on the site. Update: See also our in-depth interview with Barry Schnitt, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook , about why these changes were made.New Tools to Control Your Experience
UPDATE on Thursday, Dec. 10: We've been providing updates about our new privacy controls and answering your most common questions here on the blog . In addition to the video explaining the transition process for privacy settings, we've posted tutorials about using the new Privacy Settings page here and the Publisher privacy controls here . Today, we're launching new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share. Mark Zuckerberg, our founder and CEO, talked about these changes in his post last week . They include a simpler privacy settings page and a tool to control the audience for each and every post you create.We reported yesterday that Facebook is aiming to get people to be more public on the site and that anyone who hasn't changed their privacy settings will now see it "recommended" that their status updates, photos etc. be exposed to the whole web. I had a unique opportunity to speak to Barry Schnitt, Director of Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook and quite a frank guy, at length this afternoon about Facebook's privacy policy changes. Schnitt said "your understanding is basically correct," but disagreed with the negative light I saw the change in. Becoming less private and more public is "a change just like it was a change in 2006 when Facebook became more than just people from colleges," Schnitt told us. "Facebook is changing," he said, "and so is the world changing and we are going to innovate to meet user requests." Do you buy that?
Why Facebook Changed Its Privacy Strategy
In a late night post on Facebook's company blog , CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a round of upcoming changes that will affect all users of the social network. Specifically, the changes focus on new privacy controls for information sharing. For those who have been following Facebook closely, the announcement doesn't deliver any new information, it only confirms some previously discussed plans. However, for Facebook's user base, now 350 million strong, the updates represent a major overhaul as to how privacy is handled on the site. Change #1: No More Regional Networks Over the years, Facebook has grown from a tightly closed social network designed for connecting college students to an entirely open network which anyone and everyone can join.