Bob Sullivan at MSNBC has started a 6-part special report called "Privacy Lost", examining the erosion of American's privacy and the increasing store of personal data being collected. Part one asks, "Privacy is under attack, but does anybody care?" First,…
Category: Issues
Fly the Panoptic Skies
A Hungarian airport will soon test an RFID passenger tracking system (story here and here). The system can track every passenger to within one meter, and it will contain countermeasures to prevent passengers from removing or trading their RFID-tags. The…
NYT: Planet Google Wants You
The New York Times is running an article (in their "Fashion & Style" section??) on the increasing ubiquity of Google in people's everyday lives: Planet Google Wants You. It starts with a choice quote from an NYU law student: “I…
No, young shoppers do not want to pay with chip in skin
One of my pet peeves is the misuse of statistics in reporting. Here's an example that happens to intersect with issues of privacy. The Daily Mail is featuring a story titled "Young shoppers want to pay with chip in skin",…
Read More No, young shoppers do not want to pay with chip in skin
Microsoft Collects Petabytes of (Personal?) Data
In a New York Times article about the massive de-bugging effort Microsoft is undertaking to get their new Vista operating system released on time, mention is made that 450,000 users are testing the software, and that their computers are sending…
The Google YouTube Tango
In one corner, we have the Googlization of virtually every aspect of our online (and increasingly offline) activities, tracking your every move. In the other corner, we have the increased corporatization of Web 2.0, also interested in watching everything you…
I want my Google Data Privacy
Gene at Fred's House sounds like one of the multitude who are beginning to embrace the "Google lifestyle": I look around my desktop and I see Google Reader, Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Toolbar, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google News,…
Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade
The FTC is holding a set of public hearings November 6-8 called Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade, bringing together a diverse collection of scholars and practioners "to examine the key technological and business developments that will shape consumers' core…
From Clickstream to Clickprint
Researchers at the Wharton School are examining the ability to identify unique users based merely on their browsing behavior, their clickstream data: Clickprints on the Web: Are There Signatures in Web Browsing Data? (PDF; 233 KB) We address the question…
Debrief: Social Software and Web 2.0 seminar
I presented at the Social Software and Web 2.0: Critical Perspectives and Challenges for Research and Business seminar and workshop a few days ago at Aalborg University in Denmark. My talk, "The Panoptic Gaze of Web 2.0: How Web 2.0…
MichaelZimmer.org 
You must be logged in to post a comment.