Michael Zimmer.org

For those nearby, I’ll be the featured speaker at the Pub Politico gathering on Sunday, March 21, 2:00pm at Brocach Irish Pub in Madison, Wisconsin.
I’ll be speaking, informally, about “Failures in Self-Regulation in Online Privacy”, focusing on recent examples of how Google, Facebook, and other online companies continue to fall short in their attempts to protect user privacy, and whether/how the government should step in to provide additional protections for consumers of online services.
The gathering is co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, and is free and open …

From May 2 through May 8, 2010, libraries across the nation will celebrate Choose Privacy Week for the first time. This American Library Association campaign invites library professionals, users, and friends into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The UWM School of Information Studies and UWM Libraries have joined together to provide a venue for local librarians, information professionals, and patrons to discuss the emerging privacy and ethical challenges for libraries in the new “2.0” era, titled:
Emerging Privacy and Ethical Challenges for Libraries in the 2.0 …

Speaking of the research ethics related to automatically harvesting public social networking data, we are confronted this week with the story of Pete Warden, a former Apple engineer who has spent the last six months harvesting and analyzing data from some 215 million public Facebook profile pages.
According to Warden, he exploited a flaw in Facebook’s architecture to access public profiles without needing to be signed in to a Facebook account, effectively avoiding being bound by Facebook’s Terms of Service preventing such automated harvesting of data. As a result, he amassed …

While participating in the workshop on Revisiting Research Ethics in the Facebook Era: Challenges in Emerging CSCW Research, the question arose as to whether it was ethical for researchers to follow and systematically capture public Twitter streams without first obtaining specific, informed consent by the subjects. Many in the room felt that consent was not necessary since the tweets are public, a conscious choice made by the user to allow the whole world see her activity. In short, by not restricting …

To celebrate Data Privacy Day, Google has published its 5 guiding privacy principles. The principles are something every organization should commit to and strive for. The problem is, Google hasn’t adhered to them quite as closely as they’d want you to believe….

January 28, 2010 is Data Privacy Day. To celebrate, MichaelZimmer.org no longer uses any services that rely on web cookies or web bugs…

Microsoft has fired a new salvo into the search privacy wars, announcing it will delete IP addresses from the Bing search engine logs after 6 months.

Microsoft has decided to take the lead in search privacy and agree to the European Union’s demand that data retention be cut to six months. Previously, Microsoft de-identified its search logs immediately, but didn’t purge the IP address until 18 months. Now, de-identification still takes place immediately, and the IP addresses are completely removed in 6 months.

Responding to the brouhaha caused by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent proclamation that social norms on privacy have loosened, Michael Arrington (the tech blogger who was interviewing Zuckerberg at the time) has posted a piece on his blog Tech Crunch: “Ok You Luddites, Time To Chill Out On Facebook Over Privacy”
Arrington is correct that Zuckerberg never actually said that “the age of privacy is over”, and that off-line data aggregation companies like Equifax and TransUnion have been eroding privacy long before Facebook existed. However, just as Zuckerberg is wrong in …

There’s been quite a dust-up regarding Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent proclamation that social norms on privacy have changed, and that Facebook is merely reacting to these shifting norms.

Lots has already been said about Zuckerberg’s remarks, so I’m only going to add three thoughts to the conversation: What Zuckerberg said isn’t surprising, it isn’t new, and it isn’t true…

A story today on NPR’s Morning Edition news program focused on the controversy surrounding Facebook’s recent privacy upgrade downgrade: “Groups Complain To FTC About Facebook Changes”
My discussion with the reporter, Martin Kaste, covered most of the issues raised in my various posts on the issue:

How some of the new user controls represent a new paradigm for privacy within Facebook, but come into conflict with the Laws of Social Networking;
How Facebook should be applauded for giving users (some) new control over the information they share, as well as for prompting users …

Given the renewed focus on full-body “backscatter” surveillance technology, I thought I’d highlight this poster a group of students created in my Spring 2009 “Information Technology Ethics” class (brief news story is here).
Airport Surveillance Poster
View more presentations from michaelzimmer.

The students note that while the technology provides a way to thoroughly search more people without needing to profile those for further pat-downs, they acknowledge that the technology represents a unique invasion into one’s personal body and space.
To mitigate some of the ethical concerns, they propose creating a robust code of ethics …

One of the most controversial aspects of Facebook’s recent privacy upgrade downgrade has been the removal of the privacy setting allowing users to limit the visibility of their list of friends.
Perhaps more than any other set of information on Facebook, one’s social graph (the technical term for one’s network of friends) has the appearance of being non-personal information. It’s just a list of friends, after all. But numerous studies have shown the power of using social graphs to re-identify people in “anonymous” datasets, determine an individual’s sexual orientation, and so …

Recently I’ve commented on Facebook’s new privacy paradigm, and went so far to applaud Facebook’s promise to give users more specific control over individual posts, as well as the promise to simply its privacy settings.
My enthusiasm was tempered with skepticism (especially considering Facebook’s past privacy failures), as open questions remained about whether new default settings would be open or private, whether the touted recommendation system would suggest more strict or more lenient sharing of personal information, etc. At the end of the day, the laws of social networking dictate that …

Last week I commented on Facebook’s new privacy paradigm, which they said would launch “in the next couple of weeks”. Seems that process is starting today. Here is Facebook’s spin:
Facebook Asks More Than 350 Million Users Around the World To Personalize Their Privacy
Setting a new standard in user control, Facebook announced today that it is calling on its more than 350 million users to review and update their privacy settings—a first among major Internet services. In addition, Facebook will be rolling out easy-to-use tools to empower people to personalize control …

Facebook recently announced significant changes to how information will flow on the social network, impacting users’ privacy in both positive and (potentially) negative ways.
First, the good news: as hinted back in June, Facebook will be implementing a new feature giving users more control to specify the relative visibility of each bit of information they publish.
Currently, when you click the “Share” button to publish your status, upload photos and videos, or share links, who gets to view that content is governed by settings tucked away under a cavalcade of menus (Settings …