I’ve written an article for the September issue of Scientific American magazine called The End of Privacy? The article is available online here, with a slightly different title: Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy?.
The End of Privacy?
Category: Consumer Privacy
Posts about Consumer Privacy by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
The Problems of More Accessible Criminal Conviction Information
A recent New York Times article by Brad Stone discusses a website called CriminalSearches.com, which allows you to punch in a name of a person and do a search for any criminal records about him or her. From the article:
The New TSA Identification Requirement
The TSA, in its never-ending quest to inconvenience us without keeping us safe, has once again changed its rules on identification. According to the old rule, if you didn’t provide ID at the airport, you would be subjected to secondary screening. Now, you may be denied the right to fly entirely. According to the TSA:
Does the Roomates.com Case Affect CDA § 230 Immunity for JuicyCampus?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (en banc) has just issued a very interesting opinion interpreting a federal law providing immunity from liability for online speech — the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230. The case is Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com, LLC, 2008 WL 879293 (9th Cir. April 3, […]
Do People Have a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Abandoned DNA?
A recent NY Times article discusses how the police are increasingly collecting DNA samples from suspects — not with warrants or probable cause — they are gathering it surreptitiously from the abandoned DNA that people leave behind:
Facebook Applications: Another Privacy Concern
Recently, I’ve been complaining about Facebook’s mishaps regarding privacy. Back in 2006, Facebook sparked the ire of over 700,000 members when it launched News Feeds. In 2007, Facebook launched Beacon and Social Ads, sparking new privacy outcries. An uprising of Facebook users prompted Facebook to change its policies regarding Beacon. For more about Facebook’s recent […]
Juicy Campus: The Latest Breed of Gossip Website
There’s a new breed of gossip website, coming to a campus near you. The site is called Juicy Campus, and it involves students posting gossip about each other at particular college campuses. As Jessica Bennett writes at Newsweek:
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 […]