Today is the start of Banned Books Week 2009, the 28th annual celebration of the freedom to choose what we read, as well as the freedom to select from a full array of possibilities. Hundreds of books are challenged in…
Month: September 2009
Google Book Search Privacy Policy Mirrors Web Search, with One Hopeful, albeit Limited, Difference
The proposed Google Book Search Settlement Agreement has been the target of numerous criticisms, not the least of which has been its incredible impact on -- and incredible silence about -- users' intellectual privacy. After pressure by the FTC and advocacy groups, Google published a Privacy Policy for Google Books. In announcing the publication of this privacy policy, Google notes that "Google Books has always been covered by the general Privacy Policy for all of Google's services". Unfortunately, the fact that Google repeats that Google Books will follow the same privacy policy of general Web searching means the norms of data collection of the Web will likely prevail over the norms of the library. All the reasons we are concerned about the privacy of our Web searches are now amplified with the possible emergence of a large-scale infrastructure to track and monitor book searches.
An Objection to the Google Book Settlement by Academic Authors
Dr. Pamela Samuelson has been one of the most vocal, and most intelligent, critics of the proposed Google Book Search settlement agreement. She has written, for example, on how the settlement threatens orphan works and represents a "major restructuring of…
Read More An Objection to the Google Book Settlement by Academic Authors
New Attention to Locational Privacy Threats
Recently, the EFF released a report named "On Locational Privacy, and How to Avoid Losing it Forever", introducing some of the basic threats to locational privacy: Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people's movements…
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