Like many, I am considering leaving Facebook due to its most recent round of privacy failures -- Instant Personalization & Connections -- which represent only the latest in a continuing de-evolution of privacy protection on the popular social networking platform.…
Read More What Happens to Your Facebook Data When You Leave? (Updated)
Anthony Hoffmann, a UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies PhD student, has posted an excellent analysis of the Twitter-Library of Congress deal, in 4 parts, at his blog: Part I: Intro and Privacy Roundup: Hoffmann discusses how the LoC acquisition of…
While my Freedom of Information Act request to the Library of Congress requesting a copy of its agreement with Twitter remains unanswered, interviews with Library personnel at The American Prospect and Ars Technica provide us some insight into the nature of the agreement and the plans for the data.
Today's announcement that the Library of Congress will be archiving all public tweets since March 2006 prompts many questions. But most people, I suspect, are comfortable with the concept since the LOC is only archiving public tweets; those who decided…
Read More How Your Private Tweets Might Be Included in the Library of Congress Public Archive
The Library of Congress tweeted today that they are acquiring the entire archive of public Twitter activity since March 2006. While the LOC stresses that they're doing this for historical and scholarly reasons, there are major implications regarding the privacy and contextual expectations of Twitter users. Now, suddenly, all their tweets are being archived by the world's largest library. Yes, the tweets were always public and discoverable, but the searchability and accessibility will increase drastically if/when the LOC processes this archive. Due to these concerns, there are some vital questions that must be addressed prior to implementing such an expansive archive of public Twitter activity.
I have a summer research opportunity for an incoming UW-Milwaukee freshman interested in libraries, Web 2.0, and information ethics and policy. The Office of Undergraduate Research is again sponsoring the UR@UWM Summer Research program. Selected students are invited to campus…
Read More Research Opportunities for Incoming UW-Milwaukee Freshmen
Facebook recently announced a variety of proposed changes to its Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The changes to these governing documents point to the following matters, each with its own unique privacy implications: hints of a new location-based service, clarifying that sharing with "Everyone" means everyone, and, most notably, that Facebook may share your visible data directly with certain third party websites. This final point has gotten significant attention, but would like to point out a few aspects of Facebook's new language that reveals -- yet again -- that Facebook simply fails to understand the nature of privacy, especially in our online information ecosystem.
Starting today, users visiting Google.cn will be redirected to Google.com.hk, Google’s Hong Kong search portal, where search results will be provided free from the filtering Google had previously been performing on Google.cn. Google is touting this as ending censorship in China, but, as Siva Vaidhyanathan has pointed out, that really isn’t the case. It’s an end-around. A slight-of-hand. While Google is trying to do the right thing here, and it hopes it can deliver unfiltered results to China from Google.com.hk (or force China to take some kind of action against the Hong Kong site). But I fear this move will instead result in further failure to serve the interests of Chinese Internet users, and another lost opportunity to fight oppressive online censorship.
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…
Read More Event: Emerging Privacy and Ethical Challenges for Libraries in the 2.0 Era
Special Topics in Information Science - The Search Engine Society: Search engines have become the center of gravity of our contemporary information society, providing a powerful interface for accessing the vast amount of information available on the World Wide Web and beyond. The audacious mission of Google, for example, is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Attaining such a goal necessarily results in significant changes to the ways in which information is created, stored, retrieved, and used. This course will critically examine the nature of search engines and their role in our information society, and reveal the unique challenges they bring to bear on information institutions, information policy, and information ethics.
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