Congress and even some tech companies are promising to get serious about “Do Not Track” legislation, which will let consumers tell companies not to collect their personal information. But any meaningful change is unlikely. Read more at paidContent »
Instagram might be changing the economics of the paparazzi business, but the photo-sharing service and its social media peers can also make celebrities — willing or not — out of ordinary people. Who should pay when digital activity has real-world consequences? Read more »
An alarming story about a Senate plan to let federal agencies read your email turns out to have been a false alarm. Unfortunately, fears over online privacy mean such stories travel quickly — and that we’re likely to see the media crying wolf in the future. Read more »
Twitter is fighting a major privacy case that will help determine who has rights in social media. Unfortunately, the case is before a judge who has been disciplined for misusing Facebook. His track record suggests that he is the very last person who should be deciding these issues. Read more »
To help advertisers figure out when consumers actually intend to purchase a product and when they’re just making a wish list of fantasy items, mobile ad network Jumptap’s new ad targeting approach links mobile behavior, web behavior and offline data. Read more »
Amid debates over Do Not Track and increased activity in ad tech, a report released Monday from privacy management firm TRUSTe signals that consumers are increasingly taking actions to protect their online privacy. 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 »
It might take a trip to the local post office to get started with the social network Nextdoor, but the startup is seeing success by taking an old-school, privacy-based approach to creating online communities for neighborhoods. Read more »
Google has been on the receiving end of some particularly egregious privacy complaints lately, stemming from its revised privacy policy. However, most of these efforts to call out Google seem like little more than attempts to make a quick payday in the court or with voters. Read more »
Consumers have long been trading their personal data in return for access to Web sites like Facebook. The tradeoff has worked well for companies and consumers but, as the pool of data grows, so have privacy concerns. At Structure:Data, panelists say the current so-called solutions are misguided. Read more »
As America and Europe try to harmonize their data protection regulations, startups in Berlin explain the benefits of a more level playing field. Read more »
Software services and applications are becoming increasingly intertwined with users’ lives, and this connection is leading to greater privacy concerns. Geoffrey Woo and Jon Zhang of Glassmap say there are four things that really matter: real-time adaptiveness, transparency, the right amount of privacy, and user-service symmetry. Read more »
After you buy a smartphone and data service, what you do with the device is your business, right? Maybe not. Pre-installed software from Carrier IQ can capture every activity behind the scenes. Here’s a video showing that you don’t have the privacy you thought you had. Read more »
Last week, the Wall Street Journal updated its online privacy policy to actually give it more rights to our information. The resulting lack of outrage highlights that we have a long way to go to get online privacy where it needs to be. Read more »
Thanks to a new product from Nielsen and Facebook, the Internet could be on the cusp of become a first-class citizen in the advertising world for good. But there’s just one problem: Do Facebook users want to be part of a Nielsen family? Read more »
Online data privacy has been in the spotlight for a variety of reasons over the past year, but before Congress, regulators or courts can give any legal clarity to the issue, they need to answer some fundamental questions about area of law even applies. Read more »
There are two sides to every story: cloud computing might be a problem or a solution; the responsibility for online privacy might lie with web sites or the government; the ideal server might be either underpowered or overclocked; and Oracle might or might not ruin Java. Read more »
Deep packet inspection, a creepy targeting technology, is looking to make a comeback, this time armed with opt-in consent and incentives for users. The technology fell out of favor a couple years ago after ISPs tried to use the it to target subscribers with ads. Read more »
The issue of online privacy has become such a highly charged topic that whenever Facebook or Google overstep the line between data collection and personal privacy, all hell breaks loose. And as that line continues to blur, social networks and online services would do well to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As the year winds to a close, GigaOM Pro’s crack team of contributors takes a look back at what went right, what went wrong, and for whom in the world of the NewNet. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
