Groups seek FTC probe of possible mobile marketing privacy abuse January 14, 2009
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentRead The Story -HERE
Maryland Court Weighs Right To Sue Vs. Right To Speak December 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentJudges of Maryland’s highest court heard arguments this week about whether courts could order news organizations to reveal the names of people who posted online comments that were critical of a local business owner.
The judges are still considering the case, but at least some of them appeared to be poised to rule that the owner’s right to sue the commenters for defamation outweighs the users’ First Amendment right to speak anonymously.
“If there’s no First Amendment right to slander somebody, you can’t slander someone anonymously,” Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. of Maryland’s Court of Appeals said during the argument.
The case stems from comments posted to NewsZap.com, community news sites operated by Independent Newspapers, Inc. In one post, a commenter described a Centreville, Md. Dunkin’ Donuts owned by local business person Zebulon Brodie as “one of the most dirty and unsanitary-looking food-service places I have seen,” according to court papers.
Read The Rest—>Maryland Court Weighs Right To Sue Vs. Right To Speak
Supreme Court Hears Fox, FCC Arguments November 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentNEW YORK As most of Washington focused on the elections, the Supreme Court on Tuesday began oral arguments in the closely followed case centering on indecency and swearing on TV.
It was unclear where the majority of justices was leaning as the court began reviewing the case, Federal Communications Commission vs. Fox, to decide whether the agency can subject broadcasters to fines when they air so-called “fleeting expletives” on live TV broadcasts or even vulgar language on entertainment programming.
While observers expected to hear an occasional swear word as FCC and Fox attorneys discussed the issue with the justices, the use of such euphemisms as “the f-word” and “s-word” helped everyone avoid that, reports said.
Read The Rest—->Supreme Court Hears Fox, FCC Arguments
Online Privacy: IAB Pushes For Self-Reg September 22, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe Interactive Advertising Bureau continues to push for an industry self-regulatory body to police consumer online privacy, but it’s unlikely that the entity would actually be housed within the IAB, Mike Zaneis, vice president, Public Policy of the IAB said at the conclusion of OMMA Global’s “Bad Science” panel. If the industry fails, regulators will pass new public policy forcing it to, a top federal regulator warned. “The IAB takes the self-regulatory program very seriously,” Zaneis said, adding that conversations continue with various other trade organizations–presumably alluding to the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers. “You need everybody sitting at the table–advertisers, agencies, others,” he said, adding: “I don’t have an announcement today, but we continue to move along in the discussions.” Zaneis said the IAB “probably is not the right organization” to actually administer the program, and that it would be better to have it affiliated with an entity that has “a connection to law enforcement.” The current debate mirrors a similar, now-defunct debate of the late 1990s concerning “online profiling,” said Eileen Harrington, deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission. The “big difference,” she added, is, well, “everything.” READ THE REST OF THIS GREAT MEDIAPOST ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE
Facebook Lexicon Now Tracks Personal — and Political — Sentiment September 22, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment
Pulse of political insight?
Facebook’s new version of Lexicon sports features that let its user base play with aggregated data from.
Lexicon was introduced last April as a way for users to gauge the “buzzworthiness.” Lexicon searches all Wall, group and event posts for relevant words or phrases, then produces charts of their popularity.
In a nod to privacy advocates, Lexicon does not incorporate terms from messages, one-on-one chat, searches, or other private data.
Additions to the new Lexicon:
- Dashboard reflects the total number of unique users that mention a topic, the percentage of the Facebook user base that mentioned it, and the total number of posts.
- Demographics follow trends over time between users of different ages, genders and countries.
- Maps display where people are talking about a topic within different countries. It is currently limited to the US, Great Britain, and Canada.
- Sentiment shows how much people like or dislike a given topic. It also compares topics based their emotional appeal.
- Associations lets users see words and phrases closely associated with a topic in different points in time.
- Pulse highlights keywords that frequently show up in the profiles (Interests, Music, etc.) of people discussing the topic.
READ THE REST OF THIS GREAT MARKETINGVOX STORY BY CLICKING HERE
Yahoo Promotes Opt-Out Options for Ad Targeting August 11, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentA Congressional inquiry into ad targeting has prompted Yahoo to expand its privacy controls, allowing users to decline ads served to them based on their browsing habits.
The expanded provision, which will probably be available at the end of the month, enables users to opt out of behaviorally-targeted ads across Yahoo’s entire portal rather than just those run on partner sites.
Behaviorally-targeted ads are sponsored messages directed at users based on their previous search, purchasing or other online activity. In June it was revealed that Google uses previous search activity to serve ads against current searches. To maintain a good rapport among users that demand transparency, the search giant added a small “More Details” link to search results, which tell users how their data is being used.
The link to Yahoo’s Privacy Center will be on nearly every page of its network — a “one-up” on Google, which made much ado about the tiny privacy link it added to its homepage in July. Yahoo will also advocate its new policy through a PSA campaign about customized advertising.
This doesn’t mean Yahoo will stop collecting and retaining user data, which it says is necessary for fraud detection and law-enforcement requests. And other types of ad-serving, based on data like search terms or location, will not be affected, writes the Associated Press.
The Congressional inquiry on ad targeting was sent to 33 companies, including AOL, Microsoft, Google, and internet service providers Cablevision and Cox Communications. A similar hearing by a Senate subcommittee focused on behavioral targeting practices.
The government scrutiny is making internet marketing companies — which are accustomed to policing themselves — nervous. The FTC let them off the hook late last year when it said it would not adopt stricter policies, and small steps have been taken to make ad serving more transparent to users, but privacy advocates continue to lobby for more control.
Some say that, far from setting a user-friendly privacy precedent, Yahoo hopes to endear itself to Congress to avoid a clampdown on its search deal with Google.
GET MORE GREAT MARKETINGVOX CONTENT INCLUDING NEWSLETTERS HERE
Embarq Pleads the Fifth on Disclosing NebuAd Test to Customers July 23, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a comment
In response to a Congressional inquiry about its pilot test of NebuAd’s services, internet service provider (ISP) Embarq insisted it revised its privacy policy at least two weeks before it integrated the platform.
NebuAd partners with ISPs to serve ads to users based on their aggregate online activity. The behavioral ad firm sparked a debate over privacy in the Senate earlier this month. Amidst the fracas, it lost a planned liaison with Charter Communications.
“Embarq followed the industry practices of the most similar business model, that of online advertising networks,” wrote Embarq SVP David Zesiger of regulatory policy and external affairs in a letter to Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas).
“It appears that industry standards in this area are evolving rapidly toward a more robust form of notice and choice.”
Lawmakers last week demanded to know whether Embarq tested NebuAd’s services without notifying subscribers directly. Its response — that it changed its privacy policy two weeks prior — lends the sense it did not.
READ THE REST OF THIS MARKETING VOX ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE
FOR MORE GREAT MARKETING VOX CONTENT INCLUDING NEWSLETTERS PLEASE CLICK HERE
Court: FCC Should Decide Net Neutrality Issues July 8, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentA federal judge in California has suspended proceedings in a subscriber’s lawsuit against Comcast while the Federal Communications Commission completes its investigation into whether the company violated net neutrality principles by slowing traffic to peer-to-peer sites.
U.S. Judge Phyllis Hamilton stayed the case on the grounds that the FCC was already considering petitions against Comcast filed by online video company Vuze, as well as net neutrality advocates Free Press and Public Knowledge.
“The FCC is already using its recognized expertise to consider some of the exact questions placed before the court here, in an effort to promote uniformity in internet broadband regulation,” Hamilton wrote in a ruling quietly issued late last month.
In the ruling, Hamilton said the FCC has “well-established” authority to regulate broadband companies’ services. “The reasonableness of a broadband provider’s network management practices has … been firmly placed within the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission,” she wrote.
Last year, an investigation by The Associated Press revealed that Comcast was slowing traffic to peer-to-peer sites. The report triggered complaints to the FCC that Comcast was violating 2005 net neutrality principles, as well as a putative class-action lawsuit by California resident Jon Hart.
Read the rest of this article HERE
Google Told to Turn Over User Data of YouTube July 7, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentSAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom its records of which users watched which videos on YouTube, the Web’s largest video site by far.
The order raised concerns among YouTube users and privacy advocates that the video viewing habits of tens of millions of people could be exposed. But Google and Viacom said they were hoping to come up with a way to protect the anonymity of the site’s visitors.
Viacom also said that the information would be safeguarded by a protective order restricting access to the data to outside lawyers, who will use it solely to press Viacom’s $1 billion copyright suit against Google.
Still, the judge’s order, which was made public late Wednesday, renewed concerns among privacy advocates that Internet companies like Google are collecting unprecedented amounts of private information that could be misused or fall unexpectedly into the hands of third parties.
“These very large databases of transactional information become honey pots for law enforcement or for litigants,” said Chris Hoofnagle, a senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
For every video on YouTube, the judge required Google to turn over to Viacom the login name of every user who had watched it, and the address of their computer, known as an I.P. or Internet protocol address.
Both companies have argued that I.P. addresses alone cannot be used to unmask the identities of individuals with certainty. But in many cases, technology experts and others have been able to link I.P. addresses to individuals using other records of their online activities.
The amount of data covered by the order is staggering, as it includes every video watched on YouTube since its founding in 2005. In April alone, 82 million people in the United States watched 4.1 billion clips there, according to comScore. Some experts say virtually every Internet user has visited YouTube.
Social networking applications pose risks May 14, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentCHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — Sarah Brown is unusually cautious when it comes to social networking.
Student Adrienne Felt created her own Facebook application to see what information companies could access.
The college sophomore doesn’t have a MySpace page and, while she’s on Facebook, she does everything she can to keep her page as private as she can.
“I don’t want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems,” says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She’d like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. “It’s just common sense.”
It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it?
Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what’s known as an “application,” one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.
Brown, for instance, has installed applications on her Facebook page for Boston Bruins fans and another that allows her to post “bumper stickers” on her own page and those of her friends. It’s a core way to communicate on social networking sites, which allow friends to create pages about themselves and post photos and details about their lives and interests.
People often think Facebook profiles and sometimes MySpace pages, if they’re set as private, are only available to friends or specific groups, such as a university, workplace, or even a city.
But that’s not true if they use applications. On Facebook, for instance, applications can only be downloaded if a user checks a box allowing its developers to “know who I am and access my information,” which means everything on a profile, except contact info. Given little thought, agreeing to the terms has become a matter of routine for the nearly 70 million Facebook users worldwide who use applications to spruce up their pages and to flirt, play and bond with friends online.
News Corp.’s MySpace, which has about 117 million unique visitors each month, recently added an applications platform, giving developers access to the profiles of anyone who downloads them. Unlike Facebook, though, MySpace users don’t have to include their names on their profiles.
So what do these third-parties do with the information? Sometimes, they use it to connect users with similar interests. Sometimes, they use it to target ads, based on demographics such as gender and age (something Facebook and MySpace also do).
Facebook and MySpace say they hold application developers to strict standards — and boot them if they don’t comply. They also point out that some information, such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers, aren’t made available.
But experts who track online security issues think there’s too much personal information flying around out there, with few guarantees that it’s safe. They also think social networkers have little understanding where their information goes and how it’s used — and as a result, have a false sense of security.
“I suspect that there’s a whole lot of clicking without a lot of thinking,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project who studies privacy issues. “So much of this sharing happens in a way that users don’t see the consequences. It’s kind of a big, black hole.”
Part of the risk stems from Facebook applications being created by anyone, some of them tech-related companies and others individuals with know-how. And they could be anywhere in the world, as is Jayant Agarwalla, co-founder of Facebook’s popular Scrabulous application, a takeoff on the game Scrabble.
Reached by e-mail, he says Scrabulous does use demographic information to target ads that show up as a person plays the game. But Agarwalla, who’s based in India, stresses that that information is provided in “real time” and not stored. “In my humble opinion, users have nothing to worry about,” he says.
Some would argue that it’s much like trusting an online vendor with your credit card information.
Still, it’s an honor system, says Adrienne Felt, a computer science major at the University of Virginia. A Facebook user herself, she decided to research the site’s applications and even created her own so she could see how it worked.
Most of the developers Felt polled said they either didn’t need or use the information available to them and, if they did, accessed it only for advertising purposes.
But, in the end, Felt says there’s really nothing stopping them from matching profile information with public records. It also could be sold or stolen. And all of that could lead to serious matters such as identity theft.
“People seem to have this idea that, when you put something on the Internet, there should be some privacy model out there — that there’s somebody out there that’s enforcing good manners. But that’s not true,” Felt says.
Last year, Facebook users revolted when the company started using a tool called Beacon, which tracked its users’ purchases and actions at dozens of Web sites and then broadcast the data on the pages of the users’ friends.
Beacon has since been scaled back.
By comparison, the issue of personal information going to application developers, both on Facebook and now MySpace, has remained relatively quiet.
Jonathan Gaugler, a 26-year-old New Yorker, is one who finds targeted ads on his Facebook page a bit too invasive.
“Getting married? Do your registry here!” read one recent ad that showed up. Another on his fiancee’s page was advertising for egg donors for fertility clinics.
“Creepy,” Gaugler says.
He keeps his Facebook activity to a minimum as a result — and rarely downloads an application because he doesn’t want to be further targeted.
But many others are much less cautious, seeing the risk of social networking “as low and the reward as high,” says Patricia Sanchez Abril, an assistant professor at the University of Miami’s business school who studies privacy law.
“It is the chosen mode of communication of everyone they know. So if you’re not in it, you’re just not in the loop,” she says. “There’s a lot of peer pressure.”
What they don’t realize, she adds, is that there is little legal backup if their information is used in a way they didn’t intend.
“This is an area that’s completely unregulated. Yes, there are contracts. But if the receiving end doesn’t abide by the contract, you’re still out of luck,” Abril sa
ys.
And applications, she notes, are only one worry when it comes to online threats.
A social networker’s friends can, for instance, give access to personal information or photos in a profile. That happened to the call girl involved in the recent sex scandal with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Researchers at Indiana University also published a study last year showing how they “scraped” information from students’ social network profiles. Posing as people’s friends, they then used the information to fool the students into providing their university ID and password on a bogus external Web site.
Whether the profile is private or not, users should limit the information they post, said Tom Jagatic, one of the researchers and now a senior information technology consultant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It’s good advice, says Jeremy Miller, a fraud investigator based in Nashville, Tennessee, but he wonders how many will heed it. He uses MySpace and sees people who routinely list everything from their income to phone numbers on their profiles — and don’t even bother to make their profiles private.
“It’s kind of a status symbol, so privacy takes a back seat,” says Miller, who works for Kroll Inc., a risk management consulting firm. “It’s much like people saying you shouldn’t carry your Social Security card around in your wallet.
“But a lot of people still do it.
