Kids have always said bad things about teachers and gotten into trouble with their classmates. But today, it’s much easier for schools to overhear them by accessing a student’s Facebook account. One judge has put the brakes on this. Read more »
Federal investigators viewed the Facebook profile of an alleged gangster in the Bronx by asking his informant “friend” to show it to them. A judge ruled this was not unconstitutional because Facebook users can’t control what other people do with the information they post. Read more »
Twitter announced today that it is filing an appeal in a case that is helping to define privacy rights in the social media era. Read more »
Law enforcement and other government bodies, it seems, aren’t shy about asking for or demanding data about users from wireless carriers. All told, wireless providers received more than 1.3 million requests for user data last year, and requests are increasing every year. Here are more details. Read more »
In a closely-watched case tied to last year’s Occupy Wall Street protests, a New York judge ruled that tweets are no different from words shouted in the street and ordered Twitter to turn over a user’s account to prosecutors. Read more »
A survey of court records reveals that a growing number of iPhones and iPads are the target of forensic examinations by federal agents. Read more »
In a candid ruling, a New York judge said a protester can’t stop prosecutors from searching his Twitter account because he doesn’t own the tweets in the first place. Read more at paidContent »
On Monday, the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional in most cases to use GPS to track suspects without a warrant — calling the attachment of a GPS device to a suspect’s property a trespass — but the Court declined to address some major privacy issues also at play. Read more »
When it comes to the promise of data as the currency of the web, the current state of affairs has privacy advocates and many consumers up in arms. But it doesn’t have to be the one-sided affair it is today, in which companies have all the data and all the rights, and we shouldn’t have to be afraid of who’s doing what with our information. With laws, products, practices and education, data can become a far more valuable currency than cash ever was. Keeping that in mind, this research note examines five issues that must be addressed by policy makers and entrepreneurs so that they can deliver on our data-driven digital future. Companies mentioned in this report include Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Connectivity changes everything. That’s the credo driving just about every corner of our day-to-day lives. As human beings, we are now connected to one another through not just our social networks but also our cars, the books we read, the albums we download and even our own health and wellness habits (to name just a few areas). With that in mind, GigaOM Pro has singled out certain areas in the technology industry where we see this shift to constant connectivity taking place most drastically. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
