The Wikinomics blog has a post about potential privacy concerns that result from using Facebook applications:
“…many people do not realize that by adding these applications, they’re giving the applications (and therefore the application’s developer(s)) access to their personal information — irrespective of any privacy settings that a user may choose.”
A 2003 California law says Web sites must put links to their privacy policies on their home pages. Google doesn’t do this, saying users can simply search to find out what information it collects about them.
Story in the New York Times.
What’s one way that Google is different from AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft? It’s the only one of the big Internet companies that doesn’t put a link to its privacy policy on its home page.
Indeed, Google believes so strongly that adding the phrase “privacy policy” to its famously Spartan home page would distract users that it has picked a fight with an advertising trade group over the issue.
Full story here.
Over On Computer World Mark Hall Writes: Let’s face it: When it comes to keeping data secure, there’s plenty that IT can learn from librarians. Just as ALA members ensure that their patrons’ reading habits remain strictly private by establishing privacy audits, so, too, can CIOs audit their systems to ensure that customer and employee data is protected, says Caldwell-Stone. Privacy audits keep customer and employee content under wraps and can protect companies from embarrassing revelations. Librarians have been trained to consider privacy ramifications surrounding access to content. They guard those rights vigorously and are a great example for CIOs designing secure systems. Just ask them. Quietly, of course.
Today’s online culture of banking, blogging, social networking and shopping makes it easier than ever for those with nefarious intentions to steal your personal information. Social Security numbers, credit cards and online passwords are all at risk if you don’t keep your personal information secure both online and off. While there is no way to make identity theft a non-issue, there are a number of things that you can do to help ensure that your data is as secure as it possibly can be. Here are 100 places to start researching how to keep your information away from prying eyes.
The recent kerfluffle about Facebook’s beacon has gotten Karen thinking about Web 2.0 and privacy issues. Inherently Web 2.0 means putting more of yourself out there on the web. She says…
Libraries can learn a great deal about user expectations and privacy by looking at the successes and failures of companies in the Web 2.0 space. The main lesson that can be taken away thus far is that privacy is not an all or nothing proposition for users. Users are willing to trade some privacy rights for an service which adds benefit for them. However…
The folks over at www.Ask.com continue to do some good work, and get very little notice. The NY Times took notice of AskEraser, which allows users to make their searches more private.
Ask.com and other major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft typically keep track of search terms typed by users and link them to a computer’s Internet address, and sometimes to the user. However, when AskEraser is turned on, Ask.com discards all that information, the company said.
Anonymous Patron writes “Public library in Arlington, VA has been criticized for putting books on hold on open shelving, labeled with the patron’s name.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/09/19/AR2007091900610.html“
How search engines rate on privacy:
In the last few months, the search engine business has experienced its own version of cutthroat competition: a privacy policy war, with Google, Ask.com and Microsoft vying to outdo one another in protecting their users’ personal information.
But it’s been difficult to make direct comparisons, in part because privacy policies tend to be written by lawyers for lawyers. So CNET News.com did some of the work for you by surveying the five leading search companies.
One From The AP: A librarian who fended off an FBI demand for computer records on patrons said Wednesday that secret anti-terrorism investigations strip away personal freedoms.
“Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free,” said George Christian, executive director of Library Connection, a consortium of 27 libraries in the Hartford, Conn., area.
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