Adam Fields has an excellent post discussing why you should be concerned about the fact that your IP address can (and likely is) being tracked by online companies, such as Google. This is such an important topic, I will provide…
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Google Updates Censorship Policy
Google's official policy on censoring and otherwise altering search results has been updated since their decision to provide censored results for China. The policy can be found at the help page for the question "Does Google censor search results?" The…
Spyware Workshop, March 16-17
Helen Nissenbaum (NYU; my dissertation chair) and Ed Felton (Princeton) are co-organizing an interdisciplinary Workshop on Spyware at NYU on March 16-17. The lineup of speakers reflects a range of viewpoints on technical, legal, and policy aspects of the spyware…
Irony via e-mail
I recently received an e-mail from a reader of this site saying "Privacy is gone. Thank you for your efforts to preserve it." Kind words, and I thanked the writer. However, the writer's e-mail "signature" included the his/her full name,…
Students for a Free Tibet Protest Outside Google
Philipp Lenssen points to this report that a group of people from Students for a Free Tibet gathered in front of the Googleplex to protest against Google bowing to Chinese censorship requests. From SFT's press release:"Students and young people worldwide…
77% of Google users don’t know it records personal data
The Register reports on a recent poll finding that "More than three quarters of web surfers don't realize Google records and stores information that may identify them." While I can't vouch for the validity of the poll, it certainly seems…
Read More 77% of Google users don’t know it records personal data
Iraqi Constitution Would Ban NSA Surveillance Program
Jack Balkin points out that under the new Iraqi constitution (passed with the support of the Bush administration), the NSA spying program would be unconstitutional. According to Article 38:The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and…
Read More Iraqi Constitution Would Ban NSA Surveillance Program
Google Now Officially Censoring In China
Google has officially launched google.cn, a version of its search service designed to appease the Chinese government's desire to block searches related to Taiwanese or Tibetan independence, the Tiananmen massacre, Falun Gong, etc. CNN posted this statement from Google on…
NYT: Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search
Katie Hafner of the New York Times writes how some Internet users have changed their search habits now that concerns about government surveillance of web seaches has reached the forefront of the public mind. Among the many anecdotes related in…
Read More NYT: Internet Users Thinking Twice Before a Search
The Slipperly Slope of DOJ v. Google
Steven Levy's Newsweek article on the DOJ v. Google issue closes with a prescient warning of the slipper slope allowing government access to web search history would create:Though the government intends to use these data specifically for its COPA-related test,…
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