privacy

Google Buzz and contacts silos (and privacy and spam)

Posted 9 Feb 2010 by Laura Scott

Updated below.

So today's buzz is about Buzz, Google's new Friendfeed-kind of thing announced just an hour or so ago. Jeremiah Owyang blogged some quick thoughts, including this:

For consumers, the risk of privacy will continue to be at top of mind. Although the features allow for sharing only with friends or in public. expect more consumer groups to express concern. Overtime, this will become moot as the next generation of consumers continues to share in public.

Setting aside his prediction that privacy will become "moot" — which I don't believe is necessarily true, given that we're still in the bedazzled phase of experiencing social media's integration with our daily lives — as I look at my own use of Google, Twitter, etc., Buzz could turn out to be the means towards breaking down my contacts silos.

Brave new world? The creepy "clowd" and the loss of privacy

Posted 7 Jun 2008 by Laura Scott

I got a chill reading this post from Seth Godin:

So, very soon, you will own a cell phone that has a very good camera and knows where you are within ten or fifteen feet. And the web will know who you are and who your friends are.

What happens?

What happens is that you have no privacy. Seth sees a big upside.

See a dangerous driver? Send a video snippet to the clowd. The clowd collates that with a bunch of other shots of the same driver... busted.

If the real world were like Facebook

Posted 4 May 2008 by Laura Scott

This is too too funny. (About 2 minutes.)

[via Michelle Oshen]

How free is "free"?

Posted 27 Apr 2008 by Laura Scott

Is the future really free?

It seems we've entered an age where there's a land-grab happening for personal data and attention time. Look at all the web start-ups backed by venture capital. They aren't investing out of philanthropy. There's value there. YouTube is "free" but Google paid over a billion dollars for it. Why?

Here's a hint: It's not about the Tube.

Chris Anderson's Wired article was quite bold in its proclamations:

Apple's in the wrong, but Safari really is the better browser

Posted 22 Mar 2008 by Laura Scott

As a citizen and computer user, I agree that Apple is wrong to push Safari on Windows users:

Debate is raging today over the news that Steve Jobs has made good on his summertime promise and is now sending Apple's browser Safari along for the ride when Windows users are prompted to update iTunes or Quicktime.

Users can deselect the additional software download, but let's be realistic - there's got to be millions of people unwittingly downloading Safari onto their computers right now. Downloading software has to be opt-in, not opt-out.

Ron Paul gets disruptive

Posted 10 Nov 2007 by Laura Scott

I can't say I'm a Ron Paul supporter, but this New York Times "analysis" by Julie Bosman of a Ron Paul television ad caught my eye as being a bit off the mark. Consider this:

The advertisement has a low-budget, unpolished feel, but that is unlikely to bother many of Mr. Paul’s supporters, who tend to be extremely devoted.

Let's pause right there. Ms. Bosman's assumption that only "devoted" supporters would appreciate a low-budget television ad strikes me as nuts, or at least naïve. I don't know anybody who likes the premasticated schmaltz sausages that pass for political commercials these days. They tell us nothing, really -- and are, in fact, some of the most tedious and boring crap (excuse me) on televison. If prescription drugs and iPods were sold like this, Pfizer and Apple would be out of business.

Something widget this way comes (or: Death to widgets!)

Posted 7 Oct 2007 by Laura Scott

I've spent my Sunday morning mostly online. It's a lovely day, sunny and cool outside, and I've been wanting to get outside and do stuff. But I wanted to catch up online with some blogging and reading and such.

Which means that I've spent a bit of time struggling with the pathetic, slow, DNS-forgetful DSL service from Qwest I have at home. Every page view was taking ages to load. (How does Qwest even stay in business? Oh yeah, I forgot.)

And what's worse, among the slowest sites to load this morning was your humble hostess' own blog. And it wasn't just Qwest making things slow to start with -- it was the widgets. The slooowwwwww widgets. I'd sit there, watching the sun rise higher and higher while I wait for "Read" and "Transferring data from" messages in my status bar cycle through all the different services trying to load their widgets.

The. Widgets. Must. Go.

What's that nesting on your desktop?

Posted 23 Sep 2007 by Laura Scott

Shelley Powers on discovering that Google Desktop has managed to install itself on her computer "like a benevolent computer virus":

Ew! Ew! Get it off me! Get if OFF me!

ROTFLMAO!!

Spitzer puts the hammer on spammers

Posted 23 Mar 2006 by Laura Scott

I find this heartening:

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer accused Gratis Internet of selling personal information obtained from millions of consumers despite a promise of confidentiality.

The consumers thought they were simply registering to see a Web site offering free iPod music players or DVD movies and video games, Spitzer spokesman Brad Maione said. On sign-up pages, Gratis promised it "does not ... sell/rent e-mails."

Instead of confidentiality, Spitzer said, Gratis sold access to their e-mail information to three independent e-mail marketers, and hundreds of millions of e-mail solicitations followed.

It's good to see someone treating invasion of privacy online as a real-world concern.

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