Discussions of online privacy, privacy in public, intellectual privacy, digital surveillance, and the theory of privacy as “contextual integrity”.
Following up on their recent decision to "anonymize" its server logs after 18-24 months, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel Peter Fleischer has posted an explanation about why Google captures and retains users' search queries in the first place. While a good…
Read More Google’s Unsatisfying Explanation for Retaining User Search Data
The rise of fast processors and cheap storage means that remembering, once incredibly difficult for humans, has become simple through technology. In a faculty research working paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing…
Read More Escaping the Data Panopticon: Computers should “Forget”
Here's the latest in a string of slick flash videos about social & ethical concerns with Web 2.0: Does what happens in the Facebook stay in the Facebook? (Some additional background material is here) Most of this has been covered…
Motivated by recent events, I'm pleased to announce that I have completed and filed my dissertation, "The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine: Values, Technical Design, and the Flow of Personal Information in Spheres of Mobility." All that awaits is…
I'm pleased to announce I will be moderating a panel discussion on "Privacy in Web Search" as part of the ITS Colloquium at NYU Law's Information Law Institute. The panelists are: Ramsey Homsany, Senior Counsel, Google Daniel Howe, Ph.D. Candidate,…
On the heels of recent revelations that the FBI abused their power to issue national security letters for illegal domestic surveillance, the FBI now also admits that they have contracts with AT&T, Verizon and MCI to harvest phone records on…
Adam Fields points to this disturbing revelation that ISPs are apparently selling their customer's clickstream data. The guilty ISPs apparently took the same "anonymization" seminar as AOL, merely replacing user names with User 1, User 2, etc. And what kind…
Read More Your Clickstream Data: 40 cents; Losing Your Privacy: Priceless
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that TiVo is collecting and selling data on what parts of broadcasts people are rewinding for review and what commercials they are skipping. Dubbed "StopWatch," this data-collection practice reflects the growing ease with which various…
The spring 2007 schedule for the Information Law Institute (NYU Law School) Colloquium on Information Technology & Society has been announced. I'm excited about the opportunity to moderate the panel on "A Discussion about Privacy in Web-Search" featuring Ramsey Homsany,…
Read More NYU Colloquium on Information Technology & Society Spring 2007 Schedule
I've been meaning to blog about the discussion at Concurring Opinions regarding the rise of "cyber-shaming" - the act of posting online elements of seemingly private conversations or events that you happened to overhear or witness. Examples include the posting…
Read More Cyber-shaming, Limited Privacy, and Contextual Integrity
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