November 11th 2009
Just over a year ago, Carl Malamud, the founder of Public.Resource.org, a non-profit dedicated to making public records available online, did the Department of Defense a big proper. He noticed that the social security numbers of officers were being printed in the Congressional Record. Hundreds of thousands of them. Since copies of the Congressional Record […]
November 5th 2009
Nobody Has Noticed, But Regulation is Nearer Than You Might Imagine Earlier this year, the FCC signaled its intent to regulate the Internet. States such as Massachusetts have considered a prohibition against tracking users between sites. And the FTC has strongly suggested that ad networks require users to opt-in, rather than opt out. Interactive marketers […]
October 8th 2009
Online Marketers Who Collect Visitor Data Are Potential Targets of Regulation in 2010. Law and health care practices are required to protect personally identifiable information (PII). However, in many cases they are encouraged to circulate so-called anonymous data. It turns out the distinction between the anonymous and the personally identifiable isn’t all that real. Latanya […]
July 15th 2009
In a ruling that could cause shockwaves throughout the online legal community, a federal judge in Seattle has held that IP addresses are not personally identifiable information. According to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Jones: “In order for ‘personally identifiable information’ to be personally identifiable, it must identify a person. But an IP address identifies […]
July 13th 2009
Funny and Unusual Punishment Before we had state identification, mug shots were used to establish identity. They still fill that role, but now they also punish, entertain, deter, and transfix a growing, voyeuristic audience in print and online. The Christian Science Monitor points out the popularity of a crop of sensationalist pulp magazines with names like […]
April 30th 2009
Note to self: five things not to do on social media. Never make a public Facebook group called: “Make-it-Rain Foundation for Underprivileged Hoes,“ especially if you’re a cop in DC. Don’t Twitter plans for a massacre. Twitter crosses state lines, as does the FBI. Don’t post collections notices on people’s kids’ MySpace pages, even if […]
April 2nd 2009
The EU has started an investigation into “customer profiling” on the internet. This is where online services and advertisers collect data on anything from preferences to behavior. From a recent article in the Financial Times: Officials say they will collect evidence from consumers and industry on the information commercial websites are collecting and how it […]
March 24th 2009
According to the EU Data Retention Directive, ISPs in the EU are required to store customer internet traffic for up to 12 months. Predictably, the UK government wants to go even further with its “Interception Modernisation Programme” or IMP. IMP will monitor all web communications of UK citizens using deep-packet inspection. The information will be […]
March 7th 2009
Documentary filmmaker Rob Spence is planning to outfit his prosthetic eye with a tiny wireless camera. His “EyeBorg Project” is intended to raise awareness of surveillance society in general, and of Toronto specifically, which is infested by 12,000 such cameras. According to his press release: In order for the project to be successful the smallest, […]
February 27th 2009
Hot off the erm… screen: Another Facebook note concerning their change in the Terms of Service: they’re soliciting user input on how to shape it. So go ahead, all 175 million Facebook users. Flood Facebook central with your grocery list of demands, desires and dreams. That’ll work. Today we announced new opportunities for users to […]
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