I’m very pleased to announce that the third book in the MIT Press “Information Society Series” I am co-editing with Laura DeNardis has been released: The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World Edited by Hassan Masum…
Read More Information Society Series Book: The Reputation Society
(Update at end of post) I’m troubled by Wisconsin’s plan to create a database of all signers of the recall petitions. I know the political parties have access to the petitions in order to challenge signatures, but I’m unsure (and…
Read More Concerns with Wisconsin’s Planned Database of Recall Petition Signers
Recently I noticed what appears to be some kind of bug -- and potentially major privacy concern -- on Facebook's feed and ticker features. Let me explain the scenario: For a moderate amount of time, I had been a "friend"…
Read More Are Ex-Friend’s Activities Visible in Facebook’s Feed and Ticker?
With generous support from the Open Society Foundation, I've been working with the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom to help assess privacy attitudes and practices of librarians and related information professionals, and we just launched our first survey for librarians.
Along with Daniel Nagel and Matthias Rath, I am co-editing a special issue of the International Review of Information Ethics on the topic of "Ethics of Secrecy". The full call for papers is below, and available here. Abstract submission deadline…
The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an article featuring my critique of the privacy protections and research methods related to the “Taste, Ties, and Time” (T3) Facebook research study conducted by a set of Harvard sociologists. Written by Marc…
A few months ago Mozilla released Firefox 4, which featured an important "Do Not Track" function which informs websites and advertisers whether you wish to have your activity monitored and collected for behavioral targeting purposes. The problem, however, was that…
Read More Firefox 5 Adds Cross-Platform “Do Not Track”, and Puts it in Privacy Tab
In preparation for Choose Privacy Week, the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom and American Libraries magazine hosted a webinar today, featuring the following panel of contributors: Angela Maycock, assistant director, ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy…
Read More ALA Choose Privacy Week Webinar: Youth Privacy Attitudes
In December 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed Twitter for information on several people associated with WikiLeaks, seeking the users' full contact details (phone numbers and addresses), account payment method if any (credit card and bank account number), IP…
Mozilla has released Firefox version 4, featuring a new look and feel (Chrome, anyone?), and new privacy and security features. The feature with the most potential -- and the most buzz -- is “Do Not Track,” which "lets you tell…
MichaelZimmer.org 
You must be logged in to post a comment.