Posts Tagged ‘ Online Privacy ’

Keeping Your Private Parts Private Online

April 9th, 2013. By Hunter West

There is little doubt the evolution of communication towards electronic or social platforms such as email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter has effectively taken over our lives. Social networking, while great for reconnecting with long-lost friends or career networking, can also carry substantial risk–and often the fallout is nothing short of devastating.

While figures are not yet available for 2012, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ 3/15/12) reported last year that incidents of identity theft increased 13 percent in 2011 over the same period the year before. That translates to 12 million Americans.

What’s worse, it can take, on average some 30 hours and about $500 to resolve online identity fraud, according to TransUnion, a credit-reporting firm.

Think of it. 30 hours represents almost an entire week’s worth of lost productivity – so the financial costs can be even higher. And beyond examples of simple identity theft, are cases that are far more complex and damaging, for which legal representation is often necessary.

As our use of smart communications technology and social media increases, it’s useful to be aware of who is at risk for identity theft: 7 percent of smartphone owners were victims of identity theft in 2011, and are considered one-third more likely to fall prey to identity theft than the general population.

The reason, is that smartphones are actually mini-computers–but users tend not to protect their smartphones with passwords and other security features, as they would their PCs or laptops. According to a recent survey, 62 percent of smartphone users fail to use a password to access their home screen.

You might be surprised to know that according to a survey conducted by Javelin Strategy & Research, the business social network LinkedIn had the highest identity-theft rate at ten percent, vs. five percent for the general population. The rate for Google+ users was 7 percent, 6.3 percent for Twitter and 5.7 percent amongst users Facebook. Note that these figures are all about a year old and are probably much higher today. Facebook, says Javelin, is probably the lowest due to the availability and awareness of those much-maligned but highly effective privacy settings.

On the other end of the scale, LinkedIn is probably high because users perceive LinkedIn as a business platform and take fewer precautions, given an assumption you are connecting with like-minded business people rather than spammers, or worse.

And here is another sobering thought–you will recall that large security breaches involving Sony, Epsilon and RSA together with several government entities in 2011 represented a whopping 67 percent increase over the same period in 2010.

Ways you can protect yourself include keeping your antivirus software updated on all devices, the consistent use of strong passwords (featuring a mix of letters, numbers and symbols), and the use of different passwords for each account. And avoid storing personal information on a mobile device. All it takes is the laying down of your Blackberry or iPhone for a split second in a crowded venue and suddenly, it’s gone – with all your personal information along for the ride.

Even emails can get you in trouble, by inadvertently hitting ‘Reply all’ instead of just ‘reply.’ In so doing you may have sent sensitive, hurtful or even libelous information out to the masses.

There is little doubt that electronic communication and social networking are here to stay, as is the growing e-commerce. Protecting your identity is of paramount importance.

Tags: Identity Theft, Internet Privacy, internet security, Online Privacy, Online Security
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | No Comments »

Update: California Law Protects Facebook Passwords from Employers

September 28th, 2012. By AbiK

Remember that uproar not so long ago about employers asking for social media passwords? The story got a lot of press as job seekers in particular feared being caught between a rock and a hard place if a potential employer were to ask for their Facebook password. A dicey situation at best—and a privacy violation at worst.

Well, now we have some good news: California has signed two new laws relating to social media privacy protection. The first prohibits employers from asking current employees and/or job applicants for social media passwords in an attempt to get insight about the individual via social media snooping.

The second law covers off the same for current and prospective college students and student athletes at universities.

According to a Reuters report (9/27/12), California employers will now be barred from firing or taking disciplinary action against anyone who refuses to give up information related to their social media accounts.

The Reuters article goes on to share this statement from Governor Jerry Brown: “The Golden State is pioneering the social media revolution and these laws will protect all Californians from unwarranted invasions of their personal social media accounts.”

The new California social media password laws go into effect January 1, 2013.

Tags: California Law, Facebook Privacy, Jerry Brown, Online Passwords, Online Privacy, Social Media
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | No Comments »

How to Get Outed on Facebook: Be Seen Here

August 27th, 2012. By AbiK

How it hadn’t happened earlier is a mystery, but there’s a new website in town that’ll give even the snoopiest of insurance companies or HR departments a run for their money—heck, it might even be a new resource for them. The website is WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com.

And know they do.

Want to be outed for hating your boss and wanting to be fired? Stop by.

Want to be outed for being way the hell too hungover to show up for work? Click on over.

How ’bout being outed for taking drugs? Gotcha covered.

Oh, and you’re also outed on WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com if you’ve got a new phone number. Nice to know.

The key here is that YOU do not have to actually sign up for the pleasure of being outed on Facebook—you merely have to post something (something rather stupid I might mention) and not be too up on your Facebook privacy settings, and—Voila!—you may well show up on the site.

You may be sitting there saying, “Gosh, isn’t that like some sort of internet privacy issue? Aren’t they doing something illegal?”

Well, not exactly.

A little unkind, perhaps—but YOU’VE put the post about your prior night’s transgressions out there publicly for everyone to access, right? Not smart.

Here’s an excerpt on what WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com has to say about things:

How does it Work? It simply queries Facebook’s Graph API and outputs the results. There is nothing on this website that cannot be accessed by anyone else.

Note also the site’s disclaimer (to see full disclaimer, visit the site):

Disclaimer: All data is pulled directly from Facebook, it is not censored, and it is publicly accessible via the Graph API. I cannot be held responsible for any persons actions as a result of using this experiment. Absolutely no information from any of the data providers includes, but not limited to Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Yahoo, or Google is being collected or stored.

Hmm. Now may be a good time to head over to Facebook and make sure your privacy settings aren’t set to “Public”.

Oh, and WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com even tells you how to do that:

Just go to https://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy and make sure Control Your Default Privacy is not set to “Public”. You can set it to “Friends” but for the best privacy it is recommended you choose “Custom” and go through each option to choose who can see what.

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Privacy, Internet Privacy, Online Privacy, WeKnowWhatYoureDoing.com
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | No Comments »

Google Privacy Policy Class Action Lawsuit Filed

March 23rd, 2012. By AbiK

You knew it was coming. The minute everyone started to catch on amidst all those Google “new privacy policy” banners that, hey, Google’s going to be tracking every move you make in the name of intuition and “service”, well, you knew a privacy lawsuit would be brewing somewhere.

And so it was.

The Google privacy policy lawsuit was filed in US District Court in Manhattan on behalf of all Google and Android users who signed up for any Google service (Google+, YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, Blogger to name a few) from August 19, 2004 to February 29, 2012 and continued to use a Google account on or after March 1, 2012 when the new Google privacy policy kicked in.

The plaintiffs in the Google lawsuit—David Nisenbaum, Pedro Marti and Allison C. Weiss—are alleging violation of the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Federal Wiretap Act and the Stored Electronic Communications Act.

We posted—right before the Google privacy policy went into effect—on how to protect yourself from Google’s monitoring all your comings and goings. Check it out if you haven’t–and update your account settings.

So this one will be one to keep an eye on. The Google privacy policy lawsuit seeks class action status (ie, it’s not certified as a class action lawsuit yet) and the complaint is seeking financial damages.

Tags: Allison C. Weiss, Android, David Nisenbaum, Google Class Action Lawsuit, Google Privacy Policy, Internet Privacy, Online Privacy, Pedro Marti
Posted in Class Action, Internet/E-commerce, lawsuits | 4 Comments »

Like Goo-Gone for Google…Protect Yourself from Google’s Personal Data Grab

February 29th, 2012. By AbiK

Grippy-grabby Google is about to get a whole lot more up-close and personal beginning in March. That’s when all the convenience their new privacy policy is supposed provide officially kicks in. For many, however, the ‘convenience’ is merely a euphemism for ‘intrusion’ and only reinforces the notion that ‘internet privacy’ is the oxymoron of our age. Googlers can,however, make a change to their Google profiles to help stop the intrusion.

If you’ve seen the “We’re changing our privacy policy” notices all over anything and everything Google, and you’ve clicked “Learn more” you’ve seen that the new policy reflects Google’s “desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google”. (Red flag word = ‘intuitive’—ain’t nothing technologically intuitive out there that hasn’t first had some data input to create that intuition; in this instance, it’s Google trawling your every click and collecting the breadcrumbs you’ve dropped along the way).

So for those of you who don’t want the convenience of Google presenting you with intuitively targeted ads on your Google search screens based on your activity on Google’s entire suite of products—like what videos you viewed on YouTube or what you clicked with Google Plus—well, now’s the time to delete your Google web history—and press the proverbial ‘pause’ button on Google’s ability to continue to store your web history. Think of it as Goo Gone®* for Google.

Here’s how to Delete your Google Web History and Protect your Privacy:

1. Sign into your Google account.

2. Type the following URL into your browser bar: https://google.com/history and hit Enter (or Return)

3. Click “Remove All Web History”

That’s it—simply by doing that, you will also stop Google from collecting your web history, until such a time if and when you feel the need for Google to do so again.

Needless to say, this won’t protect you from all things Google—but it sure is a step in right direction when it comes to internet privacy.

*This is not an endorsement of Goo Gone by LawyersandSettlements.com, however, the author does keep Goo Gone on hand to get out of sticky situations.

Tags: Google Ads, Google privacy, Google Web History, Internet Privacy, Online Privacy
Posted in Emerging Issues, Internet/E-commerce | 2 Comments »