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alja polajžer

BBC News - Google cookies 'bypassed Safari privacy protection' - 0 views

  • Google cookies 'bypassed Safari privacy protection'
  • The Wall Street Journal said Google and other companies had worked around privacy settings designed to restrict cookies
  • Cookies are small text files stored by browsers which can record information about online activity, and help some online services work
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  • The Safari browser is produced by Apple, and is the browser used by the iPhone.
  • y default Safari only allows cookies to be stored by the web page a user is visiting, not from third parties such as advertisers
  • esearcher Jonathan Mayer found that advertisers were still able to store cookies on the computers of internet users browsing with Safari.
  • We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari's privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it”
  • The Wall Street Journal reported that Google "disabled the code after being contacted by the paper".
  • Online privacy advocates were highly critical of Google's actions.
  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote: "It's time for Google to acknowledge that it can do a better job of respecting the privacy of web users."
  • An Apple spokesman said in a statement: "We are aware that some third parties are circumventing Safari's privacy features and we are working to put a stop to it."
inesmag

How to keep your privacy online | Ask Jack | Technology | guardian.co.uk - 2 views

  • I would like my browsing and Google searches to be private. I don't want targeted advertising and I don't want to feel that anonymous companies are harvesting my clicks to learn all about me.
  • When the web was young, and a lot less shiny, web pages were fixed (static) and – barring browser quirks – everybody saw much the same thing. Today, much of the web is dynamic, which means that what you see has been adapted or possibly constructed on the fly just for you.
  • From your point of view, the advantage is that the websites you visit will be personalised to suit your needs and tastes. From the website's point of view, the advantage is that it can also personalise its prices and advertising to try to suit your needs and tastes, and increase your propensity to click and buy.
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  • On the web, the rule is: if you're not paying, then you are what's being sold.
  • Probably the simplest way to reduce personalisation is to use an anonymising service. Instead of accessing the web directly, you access it via a third-party proxy server, so your that requests are mixed in with thousands of others. These services usually allow you to control cookies, turn JavaScript on and off, withhold "referrer details" and so on.
  • Nonetheless, it's often useful to have access to an anonymous proxy service, and everybody should find one they like. Examples include The Cloak, Megaproxy, Proxify and ID Zap. There are also networked open source privacy systems such as Tor and I2P.
  • Google also tracks your progress across hundreds of thousands of websites via Google Analytics. To opt out of this, install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on (Beta), which Google offers for Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera. However, some sites use different analytics software or track visitors in other ways you will be unaware of. Ghostery may help reduce these.
  • Finally, Facebook Connect is a potential privacy problem because it "allows users to 'connect' their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site".
  • In general, the more you do online – social networking, cloud computing etc – the more your privacy and security are at risk. Reducing that risk involves effort and inconvenience, so it's up to you to find an acceptable compromise
Meta Arcon

Figuring out the future of online privacy - CNN.com - 1 views

  • They may not be paying for the services directly, but customers still have a lot of power -- and companies know that they need to listen.
  • "We can't just sit back and allow the industry to just continue to ignore a core component of the user experience online," said Alex Fowler, Mozilla's global privacy and public policy leader.
  • The more devices that connect to the Internet, from smart cars to home thermostats, the more data there are about a person to collect.
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  • Free versions come with ads, but for a price, people can upgrade to the ad-free experience.
  • It's also possible that over the next five to 10 years, people's attitudes toward privacy and their data will change, and they'll be willing to share more personal information
  • Not everyone will want the same level of privacy,
  • "Do not track" seems like a clear, smart option to give consumers
  • Companies that provide free services, such as search engines or social networks, have to strike the right balance between respecting their customers' privacy concerns and serving advertisers.
  • It's also possible that over the next five to 10 years, people's attitudes toward privacy and their data will change, and they'll be willing to share more personal information, attached to their real-world identity, in exchange for more heavily customized computing experiences.
Jernej Prodnik

Facebook Now Allows Friends To Promote Posts, But Privacy Concerns Arise - Internationa... - 0 views

  • Facebook Now Allows Friends To Promote Posts, But Privacy Concerns Arise
  • By Ian Kar | February 16, 2013 8:27 AM EST On average, Facebook posts are seen by approximately 16 percent of your friends; with Facebook’s newest feature, however, more of your friends may start seeing your best moments on the social network more often, because users can now pay to promote their friend’s posts.
  • Facebook hopes that with this new service, quality content supported by you and your friends will  be featured at the top of your News Feed. Some users have already received the new feature, but the gradual rollout will continue with Facebook users with fewer than 5,000 total friends and subscribers. 
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  • Facebook has dealt with many privacy issues in its nine years on the Web, but unlike most of the past issues that deal with broader concerns like “data mining,” the new promoted posts service could have a greater impact on individuals, like its increased potential for cyberbullying.One problem is your friend doesn’t need your explicit permission to promote your posts. So, for instance, if one of my friends from college decides to promote an old embarrassing photo of me, I won’t be able to prevent the picture from getting to the top of the News Feed for a large percentage of my friends.
  • We’ve reached out to Facebook to talk about any safeguards that will be put in place to prevent cyber bullying, but they didn’t get back to us by the time this article went up.In addition, there’s no way to determine who promoted the post, so, as TechCrunch notes, a friend promoting an article written by me could be perceived as a shameless plug by me in an effort get more of my friends to check out my article (which is totally true by the way).However, Facebook notes there are a lot of benefits to the service. A Facebook spokesperson released a statement to AllFacebook on Friday, describing the feature:
  • “If your friend is running a marathon for charity and has posted that information publicly, you can help that friend by promoting their post to all of your friends,” the post said. “Or if your friend is renting their apartment out and she tells her friends on Facebook, you can share the post with the people you and your friend have in common so that it shows up higher in news feed and more people notice it.”As you can see, Facebook’s new feature has a number of potentially beneficial uses like fundraising for a friends’ charity or publicizing events to increase attendance, and can even make somewhat tedious tasks like finding an apartment be a little less difficult.
  • Facebook will want to monitor this new feature to see how it’s used. It has the potential to be really lucrative and turn Facebook into a network more like Reddit, where popular posts dominate the front page on a merit basis, but it could be used maliciously to embarrass or play pranks on friends – only time will tell. Facebook is planning on emphasizing its mobile platform in 2013, and it will be interesting to see if the Promoted Posts feature will be included in its mobile plans. In the company’s most recent earnings report, Facebook said mobile ad revenue accounts for 23 percent of its total ad revenue. To contact the editor, e-mail: editor@ibtimes.com
Patricija Čelik

As 'Do Not Track' Effort Seems to Stall, Web Companies Race to Look Privacy-Friendly - ... - 0 views

  • Increasingly, Internet companies are pushing each other to prove to consumers that their data is safe and in their control.
  • “It’s not just privacy advocates and regulators pushing,” Mr. Lynch said. “Increasingly, people are concerned more about privacy as technology intersects their life.”
  • In some instances, established companies are trying to gain market advantage by casting themselves as more privacy-friendly than their rivals.
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  • To some degree, these developments signal that the industry is working hard to stave off government regulation, which is moving at a glacial pace anyway. There seems to be no movement on broad privacy legislation on Capitol Hill, and no consensus has been reached on standards for “Do Not Track,” a browser setting that would let Internet users indicate that they did not want their activity tracked by marketers.
  • Whether Internet users are ready to pay to protect their personal data is unclear, though surveys have repeatedly pointed to consumer anxiety.
sergeja perklič

The European Union Closes in on Data Privacy Legislation - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

  • The European Union is seeking to increase the private sphere of its citizens by strengthening data protection laws for the web. Large Internet firms and lobbyists are fighting the plans.
  • Gmail and Facebook may be forced to abandon their ad-supported models and start charging their customers in Europe or stop providing them with these popular services altogether.
  • Take Facebook, for example, which has its European headquarters in Ireland. The Irish government's data protection commissioner would then be responsible for the concerns of all EU citizens relating to the company's privacy policies.
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  • Under exi
  • sting privacy regulations, data protection supervision in EU countries must be conducted entirely independently of public authorities, and data protection controllers are not under the supervision of the European Commission. But the EU wants to weaken this policy and install itself as the data protection agencies' supervisory authority.
Blaž Gobec

Google's Eric Schmidt: drone wars, virtual kidnaps and privacy for kids | Technology | ... - 0 views

  • Google's Eric Schmidt: drone wars, virtual kidnaps and privacy for kids
  • and parents explain online privacy to their children long before the subject of sex
  • Dark side of the web
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  • "We could see virtual kidnappings – ransoming your ID for real money," Schmidt said.
  • Schmidt said the problems could go further as other technologies become cheaper
  • However, he held out hopes that the rise of connectivity, especially through mobile phones with data services, would reduce corruption and undermine repressive regimes.
  • In each, he said, the need to be connected, first through a mobile phone and then to the internet, became apparent.
ninicka17

Quitters Never Win: The Costs of Leaving Social Media - Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Seling... - 0 views

  •  
    "Quitters Never Win: The Costs of Leaving Social Media"
Miha Naprudnik

Controlling the web - Fault Lines - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the Protect Intellectual Property Act, were meant to crack down on the illegal sharing of digital media. The bills were drafted on request of the content industry, Hollywood studios and major record labels. 
  • The US government says it must be able to fight against piracy and cyber attacks. And that means imposing more restrictions online. But proposed legislation could seriously curb freedom of speech and privacy, threatening the internet as we know it.
  • Can and should the internet be controlled? Who gets that power? How far will the US government go to gain power over the web? And will this mean the end of a free and global internet?
Janja Petek

Unreported Side Effects of Drugs Are Found Using Internet Search Data, Study Finds - NY... - 0 views

  • Using data drawn from queries entered into Google, Microsoft and Yahoo search engines, scientists at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University have for the first time been able to detect evidence of unreported prescription drug side effects before they were found by the Food and Drug Administration’s warning system.
  • Using automated software tools to examine queries by six million Internet users taken from Web search logs in 2010, the researchers looked for searches relating to an antidepressant, paroxetine, and a cholesterol lowering drug, pravastatin.
  • The new study was undertaken after Dr. Altman wondered whether there was a more immediate and more accurate way to gain access to data similar to what the F.D.A. had access to.
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  • He turned to computer scientists at Microsoft, who created software for scanning anonymized data collected from a software toolbar installed in Web browsers by users who permitted their search histories to be collected.
  • The researchers said that they were now thinking about how to add new sources of information, like behavioral data and information from social media sources. The challenge, they noted, was to integrate new sources of data while protecting individual privacy.
Blaž Ulaga

Leader: Google is watching you | Comment is free | The Guardian - 0 views

  • technology puts adverts on the web, is against the public interest.
  • It is sad that huge and well-resourced companies are buying up the market share of others instead of building up their own capacity
  • Google holds information about the private activities of its users that the intelligence agencies would die for
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  • Consumers must be allowed to find out what information about them the company can access
anonymous

Google to be summoned over data grab 'excesses' | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Google representatives are to be summoned to appear before European data protection officials over concerns about the way it collects data on web users.
  • On Thursday, a coalition of 30 data protection officials, including Britain's information commissioner, demanded "significant progress" from Google before the summer
  • The authorities are concerned about changes Google introduced to its privacy policies in March last year. The changes were made to "unify" how information is collected across approximately 60 products, including YouTube GoogleMail, Google has said.
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