The collaborators at the important "On the Identity Trail" project in Canada were kind enough to ask me to write an essay for their blog. Here is an excerpt:Surveillance in Spheres of Mobility: Privacy, Technical Design and the Flow of…
Tag: Online Privacy
Partial Victory for Google; Larger Victory for Search Engine Privacy
The court issued a decision Friday on Gonzales v. Google, the case involving a DOJ subpoena for Google search queries. (Dan Solove has excellent coverage here.) In short, the judge ruled partially in favor of the government, ordering Google to…
Read More Partial Victory for Google; Larger Victory for Search Engine Privacy
CFP2006: Life, Liberty and Digital Rights
The website for the the Sixteenth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy has been launched. The theme for this year's CFP is Life, Liberty and Digital Rights. From the page:Now, more than ever, the lines of technology, freedom, and privacy…
NYT: US Looking for New Ways to Mine Your Data
Today's New York Times features the article "Taking Spying to Higher Level, Agencies Look for More Ways to Mine Data," which focuses on government meetings with venture capitalists and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, hoping to find or develop advanced technologies…
Poll: 60% Oppose Companies Permanently Storing Users’ Search Behaviors
A University of Connecticut Poll on Government Investigation of Internet Search Engines reveals that 60% of respondents oppose search engine companies permanently storing users’ search information. Additionally, 0nly 13% feel “extremely” or “very” confident that the search behavior collected will…
Read More Poll: 60% Oppose Companies Permanently Storing Users’ Search Behaviors
Amateur Data Mining: The Case of the Lost (Stolen) Camera
I've blogged about the concerns with commercial data aggregation, the power of data mining, and about how "security via obscurity" no longer applies when databases are online and searchable. Here's a case showing just how easy it can be for…
Read More Amateur Data Mining: The Case of the Lost (Stolen) Camera
Yahoo on NSA surveillance: No comment
Yahoo's privacy policy states:Yahoo! does not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with other people or nonaffiliated companies except to provide products or services you've requested, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances: ...We respond…
Yahoo Grapples With Online Rights
Not to be left out of the concern over the role search engines play in people's online rights, this New York Times article points out the growing conflicts Yahoo is experiencing regarding the rights of their users, including censoring search…
Yes, Google Desktop Does Put Privacy in Jeopardy
Rob Sullivan at Search Engine Journal questions whether the new "search across computers" feature of Google's Desktop software really puts users' privacy in jeopardy. Yes, it does. To respond to some of Rob's observations: So what if you have to…
Google Desktop 3.0 Copies Your Hard Drive
Google released a new version of their Desktop software, which includes a feature allowing users to search their files across computers. The service is not activated by default, and (savvy) users can opt to block certain files from being accessible…
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