From the Internet to eternity

AT A LOSS How do we to live in a world where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing

Four year ago, Stacy Snyder, 25, a high school teacher in training in Pennsylvania, Posted a photo on My Space that showed her at a party wearing a pirate hat and drinking from a plastic cup, with the caption "Drunken Pirate."

Google under probe in South Korea data collection

Seoul:

The South Korean police raided the offices of Google Korea on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether the company illegally collected and stored personal wireless data.

Google under probe in South Korea

Seoul:
South Korean police on Tuesday raided Google Inc's Seoul office on suspicion that Google had illegally collected data on users. Google has been preparing since late last year to launch its "Street View"
service in South Korea and data collection was related to the launch

Leaked video Angers Lolo

Seven years after her gala wedding Karisma Kapoor has found herself fighting against invasion of privacy. Videos of her wedding functions were leaked on YouTube in a seven-part series - complete with the 'mehendi' , 'pheras' and 'bidaai' ceremonies.

On the go: Facebook extends privacy controls to mobile phones

150 million users currently access the site through their cellphones and can change how much info is publicly available

London: From now on, people using Facebook on their mobiles will be able to select whether their friends, or friends of friends, or everyone can see any new information that they post about themselves, for now the social networking site has extended its privacy controls to mobile devices.

The move would allow users to control what information is publicly seen about them on the site, while on the move. In May 2010, as a response to international criticism of Facebook's increasingly complex privacy toolest, it amended its privacy controls, making them 'simpler' to use.

At the time co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the site "missed the mark" on allowing its users to easily control whether, for instance, their age, gender, friends or pictures were visible to the public.

Zuckerberg introduced "one simple control" to let users decide how they want to share their Facebook profile information, in addition to adding the ability to adjust privacy settings on a granular level.

"This applies to all the products we're going to release going forward. As well as retroactively. If you've set your profile so your information is viewable only to friends of friends, then all future features will also only be viewable to friends of friends," the Telegraph quoted him as saying.

And now, the networking giant has made the entire suit of Facebook privacy controls available from any mobile device.

This means people will be able to change how much personal information is publicly available about them while on the move.

Facebook says that more than 150 million users currently access the site through their mobile devices ?" a number expected to grow rapidly as an increased number of people move over to smartphones with affordable internet bundles. And the Facebook privacy features on mobile will be available from today.

Facebook has also formatted its privacy guide especially for mobiles. This is not a big change in an of itself, but it does show how serious Facebook is about appeasing users who were quite recently in foment over what they felt was underhanded dealing with their information.

"As of today, you can use these controls no matter where you are, what kind of device you have access to, or when you want to make a decision about your information," Michael Eyal Sharon, Facebook's mobile product manager, wrote in a blog post.

To access, go to m.facebook.com/privacy on your phone or go the Settings page and click the "Change" link next to "Privacy Settings." You can then choose if friends, friends of friends, or everyone can see your content, customise certain settings, and access the privacy guide, formatted for mobiles.

More than half of Britons (56%) have admitted to relying upon technology while on the move, according to a new study carried out by Kinetic, an outdoor advertising company. This is a 12% increase on the year, as only 44% of Britons said that they relied upon technology while out of the house or office, during the same poll during 2009.

The study, which polled 500 adults, found that out of the 370 (74%) which had Facebook accounts, 103 (28%) were accessing them via a mobile device.

A Kinetic spokesperson said: "The increase in popularity of smartphones together with the release of the iPad and the prevalence of Wi-Fi on public transport and in social areas, such as coffee shops and pubs is thought to be behind the rise in the number of people using technology on the move."

SITE COSTS UK 14 BN POUND

Use of social networking platforms Twitter and Facebook at work has resulted in losses of 14 billion pound to the British economy. According to a survey of 1,000 British workers, around half of employees said that they updated their profiles on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace every day at work. The survey revealed that two million of Britian's 34 million strong workforce waste at least one hour of their office time in adding friends, visiting profiles and sending messages on social networking platforms

APP CALLS PALS FOR FREE

Vonage has introduced two apps that allow you to make free phone calls to your Facebook friends nationally and internationally. The apps, called Vonage Mobile for Facebook are available free for the iPhone and Anroid phones. It's very simple to use.Load the app,sign in as you do for Facebook, you will be asked what info you want to allow access to, and you are likely at this point received the message "Less than of your friends have Vonage mobile for Facebook." It then suggests that you invite some.

60% PHONES WEB CAPABLE

Accordingly to research firm ABI Research, this is a trend that will only continue, with more than 60% of handsets having mobile Web browsers by 2015. According to the report, a 60% penetration rate of handsets with mobile Web browsers will double today's rate and bring the total number of Web-enabled phones to 3.8 billion. The phones will have one of two types of browser - a full Internet browser - a full Internet browser or a proxy-based browser and Full Internet browsers will be on all smartphones.

Hackers pick up where Facebook privacy leaves off

Software tool helps people change privacy settings using simple colour coding

Las Vegas: Hackers are weighing in on the Facebook privacy controversy with creations that help people strengthen privacy or empty profile pages at the world's leading social networking service.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) technology fellow Chris Conley showed off an arsenal of such applications at the infamous DefCon gathering, which kicked off Friday in Las Vegas.

FBI access to e-mail and web records raises fears

They can be obtained merely with the signature of a special agent in charge of FBI field office

Washington: Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.

Facebook user' profiles leaked online

New York: A security researcher on Wednesday released a file containing the names, profile addresses and unique identification numbers of more than 100 million Facebook users.

The information was corralled via a public directory Facebook makes available that lists users who are sharing at least some of their profile information with everyone on the Internet. It was collected and uploaded by Ron Bowes, a security researcher with Skull Security.

Facebook launches safety page

San Francisco:

Facebook has launched a page devoted to staying safe on the Internet. The 'safety page' highlights news and initiatives focused on ways people can keep data secure at the leading online social networking community, Joe Sullivan of Facebook said.

The page was intended to augment a virtual safety centre that Facebook introduced in April and was based on a "security page" that boasted more than 2.2 million "fans".

'No spying on kids'

BEIJING: A bizarre new law reportedly approved in China's Chongqing, a megacity of 13 million people, aims to "legally protect" children from parents "spying" on their computers and cell phones to read their diaries, online chats and text messages.

The law is ironic in the communist nation where Internet and cell phone privacy is not guaranteed anyway and billions of text messages and web searches are monitored and censored daily in the name of state security and curbing pornography.

Google needs to stop snooping

July 15, 2010

Who was harmed? Name the person." So said Google CEO Eric Schmidt several weeks ago in regard to the company's vacuuming of data from wireless local area networks. Schmidt may be right technically, but the words are not comforting, either about the wireless boom or about Google.

Oz cops to probe Google over privacy issues

Sydney:

Australian police have been asked to investigate internet giant Google over possible breaches of telecommunications privacy laws, the attorney general said on Sunday.

The investigation follows complaints from members of the public about activities of Google employees while taking photographs for Google Maps, the search engine's maps page.

The "Street view" services has recently come under fire in several countries. The company has said it inadvertently picked up personal data from some unencrypted wi-fi services over several years. The probe comes amid a wave of criticism worldwide over collection of personal information by internet giants, including Google and Facebook Google said it would cooperate with the investigation.

Senior company executive Alan Eustace said last month the company had mistakenly collected personal data from wi-fi networks, and ordered a halt to the practise. However, he said this none of the data was used in Google products.

Aussie sex offender on love quest

An Aussie sex offender, who was recently released from 11years of detention, is looking for a relationship via Facebook. The man, aged about 29, spent the last decade on a court-ordered treatment program after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting girls. He has now set up a Facebook page, with a picture of pop singer Pink, in a bid to date women. The intellectually disabled sex offender was released in may.

Internet start-ups offer bargains for users' data

New York:

Sites are pushing to see how much information people will turn over

These efforts are predicated on a shift in the relationship between consumer and company. Influenced by a willingness to trade data, sites are pushing to see how much information people will turn over

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As concern increase in Washington about the amount of private data online, and as big sites like Facebook draw criticism that they collect consumers' information in a stealthy manner, many web start-ups are pursuing a more reciprocal approach - saying, in essence: give us your data and get something in return.

The budgeting website Mint.com displays discount offers from cable companies or banks to users who reveal their personal financial data, including bank and credit card information.

The clothing retailer Bluefly could send offers for sunglasses to consumers who disclose that they bought a swimsuit. Location-based a services like Foursquare and Gowalla ask users to volunteer their location in return for rewards like discounts on Pepsi drinks or bucks coffee.

These early efforts are predicated on a shift in the relationship between consumer and company. Influenced by consumers' willingness to trade data online, the sites are pushing to see how much information people will turn over.

"People are a lot more willing to give away a lot of stuff as long as it results in some benefits that they value,' said Stephen J Hoch, a marketing professor and director of the Jay H Baker Retailing Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

New companies, including WeShop, Aprizi, Blippy and Dopplr, are trying to exploit the data that people seem so willing to give up. Some are even allowing shoppers to set what terms they want - free shipping, halfprice discounts, only fair-trade products. They can also list what they are shopping for, like a gray cashmere sweater under $100, for instance, and let the retailers fight it out for the right to make a sale.

"The whole privacy debate has grown up around people using your data without your permission," said Antony Lee, chief executive of WeShop. "If you want to use your data to your benefit, that's for you to do," Lee said.

Daniel Sjoberg, a 26-year-old in Manhattan, signed up for Mint as he was completing graduate school in biostatistics last summer. He allowed the site to pull information from his checking account, his credit card and his student loan account.

He meant to use Mint as a budgeting tool, but soon began browsing through offers Mint listed under 'ways to save'. He signed up for a Charles Schwab checking account when he learned it would refund his ATM fees, and an Ally savings account based on the interest rate.

Sponsors are allowed to include their logo and a link to their site, and they pay a referral fee if a consumers signs up, but offers from nonsponsors are listed, too. Sjoberg said he particularly liked how transparent Mint seemed to be.

"They put that very clearly for you to see -'We think Ally is good for you, and by the way, they're endorsing us'." Sjoberg said. " It's refershing to have it out in the open who's giving them money and who's not giving them money."

Aaron Patzer (pictured above), who founded Mint in 2007 (the company was acquired by Intuit in 2009 for $170 million), Believed that users would give the site private information in return for allowing Mint to analyse their finances to alert them when they had exceeded their budget, or to send them offers from cable companies or banks.

"Most venture capitalists, when I was starting this company, said that no one would trust a start-up with their financial information," said Patzer, now vice-president and general manager of Intuit's personal finance group. "In essence, we would data-mine your own data in order to help you."

While data on Mint is Kept private - There is no way to share finance details with others users_ WeShop has built a system that allows people to spread information about their shopping habits. After a consumers gives WeShop access to an e-mail account, the system scans e-mail headers to find electronic receipts, then extracts what someone bought and what price they paid.

All that information is posted to the WeShop sites as a kind of in-depth shopping history. A consumers can keep it private, or share some or all purchase data with other people in WeShop networks (using a nickname). That lets users compare about what Lego sets or prom dresses they are considering.

WeShop will give retailers access to data and allow them to send specific offers. A retailer like Bluefly, which says it plans to test WeShop, could search for people who have bought something prom-related, and send those users e-mail messages with specials offers on formal dresses. Retailers pay WeShop a percentage of the sale price when a consumers buys a product.

"Everyone's kind of working on different angles of how we give the consumers more ways to targets what they want, to ask for what they want, to ask for what they want, and get it," said Bradford Matson, cheif marketing officer of Bluefly.com. "This notion of how people shop is changing very quickly."

Facebook simplifies its privacy setting

NEW YORK

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talking about the site's new privacy settings -AP

New York: Facebook simpified its privacy controls on Wednesday, but critics were not impressed. The social networking site unveiled a new interface to control user privacy settings, on one page. Previously, there were 50 privacy setting and 170 privacy options.

Facebook will not insist that you share your friends list and pages with everyone, undoing last December's controversial changes. There are options to block all applications and websites, and opt-out of instant personalisation.

But if you opt out of applications and the entire face book platform, a major downside is that you will be unable to play games.

Tech websites said that users are still being pushed to share information by default. Privacy International reacted to the changes with "disappointment and frustration".

"While we acknowledge Facebook for putting right the mess that it created last December by deploying unusable settings, this latest action is only the first of many steps to be taken before the nature of privacy," it said.

Chester Wisniewski, a researcher at the anti-virus firm Sophos, said Facebook had changed its privacy controls without offering increased privacy:

"I welcome the simplified controls, but nothing has changed," Wisniewsk said, "I didn't see hints of an apology, nor a solid acknowledgment that Facebook went too far."

"We believe in privacy. We believe in giving people control," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said at a press conference in San Francisco to announce the overhaul.

But more and more, people want to share information. As long as they have good control over that, I think that's where the world is going."

Search giant balks at turning over wireless data to German regulators

BERLIN

Google on Thursday balked at requests from regulators in Germany and Hong Kong to surrender fragments of Internet data and e-mails it had improperly collected from unsecured home wireless networks, saying it needed time to resolve legal issues.

In Germany, Google said it was not able to comply with the Hamburg data protection supervisor's request to inspect information the company collected from Internet users by roving cars used to compile its Street View photo map archive.

The company, in a statement, implied that German privacy laws, ironically, were preventing it from turning preventing it from turning over the information, even to a government agency.

"As granting access to payload data creates legal challenges in Germany which we need to review, we are continuing to discuss the appropriate legal and logistical process for making the data available," said peter Barron, a Google spokesman in London.

In Hong Kong, the Privacy commissioner, Roderick B Woo, threatened sanctions after Google did not respond to his request to inspect data. Woo said Google had ignored a Monday deadline to turn over the information.

The standoffs increase the chance that Google may face fines and proceedings in Europe and Asia after its cars collected 600 gigabytes of data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in 33 countries and Hong Kong.

Search for self: 71% youth track their reputation online

Users aged 18 to 29 most likely to change privacy settings on profiles to limit what they share with others

What's that? A young college grad lecturing her elders about online privacy?

It might go against conventional wisdom, but a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project is adding fuel to the argument that young people are fast becoming the gurus of online reputation management, especially when it comes to social networking sites.

Among other things, the study found that they are most likely to limit personal information online - and the least likely to trust free online services ranging from Facebook to LinkedIn and MySpace.

Marlene McManus,21, is among those young adults. On the Job hunt since graduating from Clark University in Massachusetts, she's been "scouring" her Facebook page, removing photos that contain beer cups and any other signs of college exploits. She's also dropped twitter altogether. " I have to present a public face that doesn't have the potential to hurt my image ," McManus says.

Adults over the age of 30 might do well to listen. The Pew study and a mounting body of new research is showing that the very generation accused of sharing too much information online is actually leading the pack in online privacy.

The Pew study found, for instance , that social networkers ages 18 to 29 were the most likely to change the privacy settings on their profiles to limit what they share with others online. The percentage who did so was 71%, compared with just 55% of the 50-to 64-year-old bracket. Meanwhile, about two-thirds of all social networkers who were surveyed said they've tightened security settings.

About half of young people in that 18-29 bracket have deleted comments that others have made on their profile, compared with just 29% of those ages 30 to 49 and 26% of 50-to 64-year-olds.

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Managing your Web image

Snooping has, unsurprisingly, continued to grow in popularity. But actively combating that surreptitious monitoring has also significantly escalated

Additional surveys estimate that 70% of potential employers research their applicants online, and frequently reject them because of what they find

52% of adults dangerously over-share on social networks, the oblivious oldtimers would do well to learn from the youngsters

41% have removed their names from photos of them posted by other compared to 18% of those 50 to 64