Much has been made of Google’s unified privacy policy that went into effect last week. In my Twitter feed, I saw the usual suspects; threats of dumping all Google products, enraged people shouting about how Google is out to take over the world, you know, a whole lot of this. Perhaps these people are unaware of how commerce on the Internet works. This is always a good reminder for us as PR pros, and for our clients. The number of companies that collect your data for their own marketing purposes or for their partners is astronomical. However, let’s rundown a few of the major names to put this in perspective: Continue reading
Tag Archives: privacy
Privacy in Social Media – The Next Hot Button Issue?
In case anyone missed it, on Tuesday of last week the FTC settled their eight-count complaint against Facebook alleging they “misled users about the use of their personal information.” Essentially the FTC was claiming that Facebook had knowingly made changes to their privacy settings in December of 2009 that automatically made aspects of user’s profiles public by default without their permission.
At issue is the inability for Facebook users to have control over who sees their private information (name, picture, city, gender, friends, etc.) and who doesn’t. Twitter has also been a Target of the FTC, and settled a similar case back in June of 2010 for failing to safeguard user information. Continue reading
Facebook+Privacy=#SoWhat?
Do you ever feel like you are the only one that believes in something or honestly doesn’t care at all about something? For example, I feel that the botched Times Square bomber should suffer a public execution, regardless of if it was a failed terrorist attempt. I’m rooting for the guillotine, but a hanging or stoning would be fine in my book as well. When I say things like this people look at me like I’m so weird. Umm, my words to you…you spend all day in the spot he tried to bomb and then come back to me. Anyway, that’s just an example of what I’m discussing here.
So what’s the big deal with Facebook messing up this week? Everytime Facebook makes one mistake the Internet blows up saying so much nonsense. Ahhhh Privacy! I’ve been exposed, I have to run for the hills and bitch about it! People, it’s the Internet…as mentioned in previous posts nothing is private. Continue reading