Pre-class Discussion for Jan 15: Difference between revisions

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* This article makes the claim that government databases pose much greater threats to the public than private databases.  However, in Prof. Zittrain's book, he points out that the Privacy Act of 1974 applied a set of fair information practices to government agencies' records, but "Congress never enacted a comparable comprehensive regulatory scheme for private databases."  Even if government records pose the potential for more harm to the public, could the lack of regulation of private databases in reality pose a greater threat?  --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:19, 14 January 2008 (EST)
* This article makes the claim that government databases pose much greater threats to the public than private databases.  However, in Prof. Zittrain's book, he points out that the Privacy Act of 1974 applied a set of fair information practices to government agencies' records, but "Congress never enacted a comparable comprehensive regulatory scheme for private databases."  Even if government records pose the potential for more harm to the public, could the lack of regulation of private databases in reality pose a greater threat?  --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:19, 14 January 2008 (EST)
* Singleton is very concerned with free speech, and worries that private institutions' right to free speech will be stifled if they are not allowed to freely share database information with third parties.  However, isn't there a very real chance that free expression among the general public can be stifled if their information is indiscrimanately shared among third parties?  For example, a person may be less willing to sign a petition if they worry that their contact information will be sold to telemarketers.  Hasn't this person's free speech right been infringed upon?  Are we willing to sacrifice this right in order to preserve the right of companies to exchange database information?  --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:25, 14 January 2008 (EST)
* Singleton is very concerned with free speech, and worries that private institutions' right to free speech will be stifled if they are not allowed to freely share database information with third parties.  However, isn't there a very real chance that free expression among the general public can be stifled if their information is indiscrimanately shared among third parties?  For example, a person may be less willing to sign a petition if they worry that their contact information will be sold to telemarketers.  Hasn't this person's free speech right been infringed upon?  Are we willing to sacrifice this right in order to preserve the right of companies to exchange database information?  --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:25, 14 January 2008 (EST)
* Pardon my haven't-taken-a-class-on-it-so-am-confused question: Do corporations and businesses have free speech rights? Wikipedia weighs in on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate Corporate Personhood]. [[User:Jumpingdeeps|Jumpingdeeps]] 20:40, 14 January 2008 (EST)


== Reputation Economies ==
== Reputation Economies ==

Revision as of 21:40, 14 January 2008

Questions for Chris Kelly

  • (from Question tool): With Facebook opening up to anyone (instead of being closed to certain (i.e. educational) networks), what are you doing to avoid/mitigate some of the privacy and security issues that have been encountered on MySpace?
  • (from Question tool): Is facebook's commercial strengths/strategy lying more in providing the best features/development platform to attract users or aggregating/analyzing the most information about users for better advertising monetization?

Firefox Workaround to Block Facebook Beacon

Here's a workaround for Firefox that I received a few days into this drama that lets you block Facebook beacon. Jumpingdeeps 10:15, 13 January 2008 (EST)

    • I'm pretty sure that now there is a global opt-out option for this in the Facebook privacy settings, but according to one of our articles for today, even with this setting turned on, "information about your habits on these third party sites are still sent along with your e-mail address to Facebook." I'm not sure if this workaround blocks these as well? --NikaE 20:29, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Future of the Internet, Chapter 9

Facebook Responds to Privacy Concerns

  • I think one of the most important points to take away from this is that default settings matter. When the default on Facebook was to have Beacon as an opt-out service, there were many stories of users who hadn't even noticed pop-up windows asking whether they wanted their purchase to be reported on Facebook. As a result, some holiday presents that users had bought for their friends appeared in those same friends' Facebook news feeds. Thus, the opt-out default turned out to cause real problems. Even though Facebook has changed many of their policies regarding Beacon, in order to entirely opt out of the service one must affirmatively change their Facebook settings and state that they never want their activity on outside websites reported to Facebook. I get the sense that if Beacon was introduced entirely as an opt-in feature, almost no average users would change their privacy settings to allow outside websites to sometimes post their behavior on Facebook. Clearly, default settings matter. --NikaE 20:15, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Privacy as Censorship

  • This article makes the claim that government databases pose much greater threats to the public than private databases. However, in Prof. Zittrain's book, he points out that the Privacy Act of 1974 applied a set of fair information practices to government agencies' records, but "Congress never enacted a comparable comprehensive regulatory scheme for private databases." Even if government records pose the potential for more harm to the public, could the lack of regulation of private databases in reality pose a greater threat? --NikaE 20:19, 14 January 2008 (EST)
  • Singleton is very concerned with free speech, and worries that private institutions' right to free speech will be stifled if they are not allowed to freely share database information with third parties. However, isn't there a very real chance that free expression among the general public can be stifled if their information is indiscrimanately shared among third parties? For example, a person may be less willing to sign a petition if they worry that their contact information will be sold to telemarketers. Hasn't this person's free speech right been infringed upon? Are we willing to sacrifice this right in order to preserve the right of companies to exchange database information? --NikaE 20:25, 14 January 2008 (EST)
  • Pardon my haven't-taken-a-class-on-it-so-am-confused question: Do corporations and businesses have free speech rights? Wikipedia weighs in on Corporate Personhood. Jumpingdeeps 20:40, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Reputation Economies