PRIVACY + SECURITY BLOG

News, Developments, and Insights

Book Review: Lawrence Friedman’s Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets

Professor Lawrence M. Friedman (Stanford Law School) Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets: Legal and Social Controls over Reputation, Propriety, and Privacy (Stanford University Press, November 2007) ISBN: 978-0-8047-5739-3 Professor Lawrence Friedman‘s Guarding Life’s Dark Secrets: Legal and Social Controls over Reputation, Propriety, and Privacy is a wonderful and accessible history of the norms and law that […]

Statutory Interpretation and Legislative Unresponsiveness

I see it happening over and over again. A legislature passes a statute. A new situation arises, one that doesn’t seem to have been anticipated by the legislature at the time of passing the statute. Judges must interpret the statute, and they often make one of two arguments: (1) had the legislature anticipated the case […]

Facebook — the New DoubleClick?

I previously complained about Facebook’s Beacon and Social Ads, and last week Facebook appeared to back down (at least from Beacon) by changing its policy and having users opt-in before their activities on other websites is broadcast on their profiles. I applauded Facebook’s change of heart. But there are more disturbing aspects of Beacon that […]

Facebook’s Beacon, Blockbuster, and the Video Privacy Protection Act

The news has been buzzing lately about Facebook’s Beacon, where participating websites share personal information with Facebook. Beacon originally had a poor notice and opt-out policy, but after significant public criticism, Facebook changed to an opt-in policy. Even under the new opt-in policy, however, the participating companies are still turning data over to Facebook, and […]

Breaking Up: From Face-to-Face to Facebook

In my book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, I write about how members of the current generation — what I call “Generation Google” — are increasingly spreading gossip and rumors about their private lives online. Some people have few inhibitions, especially one woman who decided to break up with […]