Posts about Consumer Privacy by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
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:
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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:
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 […]
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 founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has learned a lesson about privacy — it’s hard to maintain if others irresponsibly leak your personal information. From the New York Times:
I’m quite pleased to learn that Facebook has come to a privacy epiphany. I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the privacy problems with Facebook’s new features — Beacon and Social Ads: * Facebook’s Beacon: News Feeds All Over Again? * The Facebook-Fandango Connection: Invasion of Privacy? * Facebook and the Appropriation of Name or […]
On December 8, 2007, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project will be holding a conference about online reputation called Reputation Economies in Cyberspace. I’ll be participating in the symposium and will be talking about my book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. Other participants include Alessandro Acquisti, Michel Bauwens, Danielle […]