I love watching the Olympics. Team USA's gold medal winning performance in men's ice hockey in 1980 inspired me to start playing ice hockey when I was a kid. In the 1980's, there was a foosball like arcade game that had Team USA v. USSR (CCCP) face off in a mini hockey rink that I enjoyed playing.
While recently reading an ESPN.com article about the latest U.S. v. Russia men's ice hockey game today I decided to review the comments section of the article. I noticed that ESPN.com has joined other websites in using Facebook's comment platform. This is unfortunate since Facebook's commenting platform is a threat to personal privacy, the freedom of speech, and it assists data brokers.
Approximately a year ago, Facebook partnered with data brokers Axciom, Epsilon, Datalogix and Blue Kai to provide them a treasure trove of personal information about its users. This partnership has greatly deteriorated the personal privacy of Facebook users and their "Facebook Friends". Therefore, any comment one makes about Team USA beating Russia in the Olympics may then be placed in one's data broker file. This information may then be utilized to discriminate against those who make a public comment using Facebook's platform.
Americans have utilized public forums to anonymously comment on issues of the day since at least the time of the Federalist Papers in 1788. Facebook's comment platform destroys anonymity and deters open public discourse. Those who utilize Facebook's comment platform may not realize that every comment they make is tied to them forever.
The bottom line is that social media users may need to become better educated regarding how commercial entities are tracking them online and how data brokers may be a greater threat to our personal privacy, safety, and security than the NSA, a foreign government, or hackers.
Copyright 2014 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label Social Media Privacy and the Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media Privacy and the Law. Show all posts
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Saturday, December 21, 2013
Snapchat iOS Update May Be A Danger To Privacy
Privacy is in vogue. I believe Mark Zuckerberg's so called "Law of Information Sharing" is dead. While we as a society may continue to share more information online via social media, the cloud, apps, email, etc... people are more aware of the dangers of sharing too much so they are changing their behavior accordingly.
Facebook recently admitting that younger teens are using their platform less. Why? The answer is debatable; however, I believe it has something to do with parents, employers, schools, the police, governments, etc... wanting access to their personal digital content. To help users believe the content they send online is safe from prying eyes multiple apps and other digital services have popped up that claim that user privacy is built in by design. One of the most popular apps that claim they are built with privacy in mind is Snapchat.
Snapchat has become so popular that it was recently reported that Facebook tried to acquire the company for $3 billion dollars and Google may have offered $4 billion dollars. There are allegedly 400 million snaps (images sent via Snapchat) received daily on the platform apparently because users believe their content is safer sent via Snapchat than through other services.
While Snapchat offers some better privacy protections than other content sharing apps due to its allegedly disappearing photo offering, its latest iOS update Replay feature actually endangers user privacy by allowing an image to be re-viewed at a later time. In general, when opening a snap you don't have another image capturing device handy to take an image of the snap being viewed. Usually, one opens a snap and it disappears after several seconds. No harm, no foul unless the receiver has another image capturing device handy. With the new Replay option enabled, if someone sends a nude selfie or other potentially scandalous image, the receiver now may have plenty of time to have another device ready to capture the image.
Before this iOS update, images sent via Snapchat could be re-purposed beyond their intended usage and there have been some publicized incidents of snaps creating problems for those in the image(s). For example, a Missouri mom is in legal trouble and was recently charged with endangering the welfare of a child (one of her kids) due to a topless photo her daughter took of her that was sent via Snapchat. This case demonstrates the potential dangers users may encounter when taking personal photographs/videos and disseminating the images via digital platforms; even through Snapchat.
Providing a "second bite at the apple" to view content that a user has deemed "Snapable" or more private than images shared via Facebook is a danger to privacy. Once content is digitized, it can potentially be sent anywhere in the world and saved for an infinite period of time. Allowing more opportunities to view potentially scandalous content may put users' privacy at risk.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Facebook recently admitting that younger teens are using their platform less. Why? The answer is debatable; however, I believe it has something to do with parents, employers, schools, the police, governments, etc... wanting access to their personal digital content. To help users believe the content they send online is safe from prying eyes multiple apps and other digital services have popped up that claim that user privacy is built in by design. One of the most popular apps that claim they are built with privacy in mind is Snapchat.
Snapchat has become so popular that it was recently reported that Facebook tried to acquire the company for $3 billion dollars and Google may have offered $4 billion dollars. There are allegedly 400 million snaps (images sent via Snapchat) received daily on the platform apparently because users believe their content is safer sent via Snapchat than through other services.
While Snapchat offers some better privacy protections than other content sharing apps due to its allegedly disappearing photo offering, its latest iOS update Replay feature actually endangers user privacy by allowing an image to be re-viewed at a later time. In general, when opening a snap you don't have another image capturing device handy to take an image of the snap being viewed. Usually, one opens a snap and it disappears after several seconds. No harm, no foul unless the receiver has another image capturing device handy. With the new Replay option enabled, if someone sends a nude selfie or other potentially scandalous image, the receiver now may have plenty of time to have another device ready to capture the image.
Before this iOS update, images sent via Snapchat could be re-purposed beyond their intended usage and there have been some publicized incidents of snaps creating problems for those in the image(s). For example, a Missouri mom is in legal trouble and was recently charged with endangering the welfare of a child (one of her kids) due to a topless photo her daughter took of her that was sent via Snapchat. This case demonstrates the potential dangers users may encounter when taking personal photographs/videos and disseminating the images via digital platforms; even through Snapchat.
Providing a "second bite at the apple" to view content that a user has deemed "Snapable" or more private than images shared via Facebook is a danger to privacy. Once content is digitized, it can potentially be sent anywhere in the world and saved for an infinite period of time. Allowing more opportunities to view potentially scandalous content may put users' privacy at risk.
Copyright 2013 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
Monday, October 15, 2012
European Union May Require Google To Change Its Privacy Policies
According to Reuters, the European Union has sent Google a letter demanding changes to Google's new privacy policy to better protect the personal data of its users. The Guardian is reporting that Google may be told on Tuesday to revisit the controversial changes introduced in March.
On January 24, 2012, Google announced that as of March 1, 2012, it would revamp its privacy policies. At the time of its announcement, Google stated that it had more than 70 privacy policies and that it is "rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way. While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy." .... "Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services."
Streamlining almost 70 privacy policies into 1 policy is much easier for compliance and legal purposes since it means that Google will only have to keep abreast of 1 uniform policy instead of more than 60. In other words, the change may decrease legal and compliance costs by millions of dollars per year. The new Privacy Policy states that Google may combine all of its users' information into one profile that may enhance its data mining capabilities which may increase its advertising revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Of Google's $37.9 billion in 2011 revenue, 96 percent came from advertising.
Before Google's new privacy policy went into effect, France's data protection authority, the CNIL, told Google in a letter dated February 27, 2012 that it would lead a Europe-wide investigation of the new policy. Soon after Google implemented the changes there was an uproar about the matter.
Since Google refused to heed the EU's prior warnings that changing its privacy policies may violate data protection laws it would not surprise me if the CNIL harshly rebukes Google and "recommends" it change its privacy policies and is "asked" to better inform its users on how it utilizes their personal data. However, until the decison is made public it would be premature to speculate how this may affect Google and its advertising clients.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
On January 24, 2012, Google announced that as of March 1, 2012, it would revamp its privacy policies. At the time of its announcement, Google stated that it had more than 70 privacy policies and that it is "rolling out a new main privacy policy that covers the majority of our products and explains what information we collect, and how we use it, in a much more readable way. While we’ve had to keep a handful of separate privacy notices for legal and other reasons, we’re consolidating more than 60 into our main Privacy Policy." .... "Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services."
Streamlining almost 70 privacy policies into 1 policy is much easier for compliance and legal purposes since it means that Google will only have to keep abreast of 1 uniform policy instead of more than 60. In other words, the change may decrease legal and compliance costs by millions of dollars per year. The new Privacy Policy states that Google may combine all of its users' information into one profile that may enhance its data mining capabilities which may increase its advertising revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Of Google's $37.9 billion in 2011 revenue, 96 percent came from advertising.
Before Google's new privacy policy went into effect, France's data protection authority, the CNIL, told Google in a letter dated February 27, 2012 that it would lead a Europe-wide investigation of the new policy. Soon after Google implemented the changes there was an uproar about the matter.
Since Google refused to heed the EU's prior warnings that changing its privacy policies may violate data protection laws it would not surprise me if the CNIL harshly rebukes Google and "recommends" it change its privacy policies and is "asked" to better inform its users on how it utilizes their personal data. However, until the decison is made public it would be premature to speculate how this may affect Google and its advertising clients.
To learn more about these issues you may contact me at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2012 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
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