According to Jordan McCollum at Marketing Pilgrim.com, if you use the Google Video “Post to my blog” feature, your password and login information are not protected. No https, no encryption, no SSL: they’re listed right in the headers.
Funny that this didn’t make nearly as much news as all the other Google-related privacy brouhaha.
Taking a Stanford class in Facebook applications - Oct. 8, 2007
No time to blog but will let the link speak for itself.
Spockis the self-proclaimed leader in personal search, helping users find and discover people. See this review via Search 2.0
This makes me wonder whether the future of search engines lies in niche-searching, e.g. Spock for people, Google for keywords, another search engine for searching business websites for products, etc.
This strikes me as a more realistic approach to organizing information on the web than a “one size fits all” search.
That said, I am staring to find software for utilizing the semantic web! I’m excited to see this but have yet to explore it more fully. Will post more when I’ve had a chance to test drive it.
I read about the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic’s (CIPPIC) concerns with Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology and privacy but didn’t make the connection until I read this article in the Globe: if you download music from Apple’s iTunes they are watching you!! (Did that get your attention too? lol)
It is hard to straighten out the facts from the privacy-fiction but, according to CIPPIC’s media release, DRM technologies don’t sufficiently inform users that they are tracking usage and surfing habits — and, more sinisterly, CIPPIC observed “unexplained communications with third parties including marketing
companies.”
UPDATE sept 27/07:
little more for you:
One example described in the report is Intuit’s QuickTax software. According to the CIPPIC, the DRM platform in QuickTax causes it to send Canadian residents’ information to US officials, and there is no disclosure about that up front.
Google has been criticized recently for its invasion of privacy at the “Street View”. In its defense, Google will argue on the basis of the APEC Privacy Framework. This is underpinned by nine principles: preventing harm; integrity of personal information; notice; security safeguards; collection limitations; access and correction; uses of personal information; accountability; and choice.
Google argues that the APEC privacy framework emphasizes what true “harm” comes from the practice, as opposed to Canada’s PIPEDA or the European versions, which they saw “focuses on abstractions”.
(excuse me while I reach for the vomit bag)