Category: Privacy
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The Web of Web Lobbying
The Wall Street Journal reported on a battle developing between privacy advocates and internet companies concerning AB 1291, a transparency measure that is in part based upon some of my privacy research: The industry backlash is against the “Right to Know Act,” a bill introduced in February by Bonnie Lowenthal, a Democratic assemblywoman from Long…
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Chris Discusses Google's New Privacy Disclosures on NPR this Morning
For shameless self promotion this morning I present Chris on NPR discussing Google’s new disclosure of the rules it uses to share information with government authorities.
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$15 To Turn off "Special Offers" Bravo Amazon.com!
With the announcement of the Kindle Fire HD, some users were upset to learn that Amazon was going to stuff “special offers” on the device. But the company quickly retreated, and now is offering the option to turn of the ads for a mere $15. This is a good development for consumers. We should have…
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How Did You Get My Facebook?
Facebook watchers are reporting that the service is about to launch a new feature for merchants that will allow merchants to target ads to users based upon users’ email and phone numbers. That’s a little confusing. Let me explain with a hypo– As I understand it, it might work like this: ABC Corp. has an…
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App.net and the Free Problem
Have you heard of App.net? If not, check it out. The basic premise is to create a social media platform that is aligned with users’ interest. And so, gasp, it costs money! The CEO, Dalton Caldwell, has a neat video explaining the inception of the project and the philosophy of the venture. Critics have said…
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The Privacy Competition Myth
In his non-book-review of Garret Keizer’s new book, Privacy, “Reason” Magazine correspondent includes this ill-informed quip on privacy: With regard to modern commerce, Mr. Keizer grumps: “We would do well to ask if the capitalist economy and its obsessions with smart marketing and technological innovation cannot become as intrusive as any authoritarian state.” Actually, no.…
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Hark! A New Trade Group is Born
BNA reports on the formation of the Internet Association, a new trade group that will represent Google, Facebook, eBay, and Amazon. The group introduces itself as, “the unified voice of the Internet economy, representing the interests of America’s leading Internet companies and their global community of users. The Internet Association is dedicated to advancing public…
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Disinformation about Disinformation: L. Gordon Crovitz's Information Age
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When one spouts disinformation about disinformation, does it make it information? No, it’s L. Gordon Crovitz’s “Information Age,” the weekly poorly informed and poorly reasoned blather about information policy in the Wall Street Journal. Recall that Crovitz recently wrote about the invention of the Internet and online privacy. I wrote about these last two columns,…
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Louis Gordon Crovitz’s Disinformation Age
Imagine a newspaper oped with half a dozen fallacies. Such a thing could appear in any newspaper in the US. But now imagine that the author is a Rhodes Scholar and you’re left with the Wall Street Journal’s L. Gordon Crovitz. For years I’ve followed the bizarre arguments of L. Gordon Crovitz, who has a…
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Calling Facebook on its Empty PR
Those of you who read Mark Zuckerberg’s oped in today’s Washington Post might appreciate my take on how Facebook talks about privacy in tomorrow’s San Francisco Chronicle: The Privacy Machiavellis.