Privacy

Confused by SOPA? Five Multimedia Explainers

Stevie Converse — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 09:12:31 -0500

Full article: Media Bistro
Elana Zak
The Stop Online Privacy Piracy Act (SOPA) has generated a lot of press in the last few months. The controversial bill, along with its companion bill, Protect-IP Act (PIPA), intends to fight copyright infringement and piracy but has turned into a bitter battle between old and new media. Here are some interactive articles that explain the bill.

Hackers Plan Space Satellites to Combat Censorship

Stevie Converse — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:38:36 -0500

Full article: BBC
David Meyer
Computer hackers plan to take the internet beyond the reach of censors by putting their own communication satellites into orbit. The scheme was outlined at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. The project's organizers said the Hackerspace Global Grid will also involve developing a grid of ground stations to track and communicate with the satellites.

The Five Levels of ISP Evil

Stevie Converse — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 08:19:04 -0400

Full article: GigaOM
Dane Jasper
Recently a number of ISPs, using a system from Paxfire, have been caught improperly redirecting end-user traffic in order to generate affiliate payments. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Paxfire and one of the ISPs. This is a serious allegation, but it's the tip of the iceberg. Most people don't understand the levels of sneakiness that service providers can engage in.

Drug Marketing and Free Speech

Stevie Converse — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:50:47 -0400

Full article: New York Times
If the Supreme Court had treated Vermont's law forbidding the sale of doctor's records by pharmacies and their use for marketing purposes as a restriction on commercial speech instead of a violation of the First Amendment, Vermont's law would have been upheld. As it is, the court's decision unwisely narrows the gap between commercial and political speech and makes it harder to protect consumers.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Vermont Data Mining Regulation

Stevie Converse — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 11:46:55 -0400

Full article: Modern Health Care
Joe Carlson
In a victory for pharmaceutical and data-mining companies, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a Vermont statute that sought to outlaw the practice of pharmacies selling information to drugmakers about doctors' prescribing habits. In a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled that Vermont's law violated constitutional protections on free speech even though lawmakers drafted it with the goal of preventing pharmaceutical companies from using direct marketing to convince doctors to prescribe more-costly drugs to patients.

Franken Introduces Geolocation Privacy Bill

Stevie Converse — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:52:08 -0400

Full article: Broadband Breakfast
Rahul Gaitonde
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), introduced a bill that would make rules more stringent for collecting geolocation data on mobile device users. The Location Privacy Protection Act of 2011 would require companies to obtain users' expressed consent to collect location data and to notify users when they share location data with third parties.

Facebook Changes Privacy Settings to Enable Facial Recognition

Stevie Converse — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:41:36 -0400

Full article: New York Times
Nick Bilton
Facebook is pushing the privacy line once again. The company recently began changing its users' privacy settings to automatically turn on a facial recognition feature that detects a user’s face in an image. Facebook also doesn’t give users the option to avoid being tagged in a photo; instead, people who don’t want their name attached to an image must untag themselves after the fact.

How Apple Tracks Your Location Without Consent, and Why It Matters

Stevie Converse — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:18:26 -0400

Full article: Ars Technica
Jacqui Cheng
If you haven't yet enabled encrypted backups for your iPhone or iPad, now's definitely the time to start. Two security researchers have discovered a simple way to map out where you've been almost anywhere in the world -- without any hacking involved. And it's information that no one should have access to -- not even law enforcement, barring a court order.

FTC Pushes Industry to Protect Consumer Privacy

Lindsy Embree — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:27:05 -0500

Full article: MediaPost
Wayne Friedman
Referring to himself as perhaps "the elephant in the room," David Vladeck, director of the bureau of consumer protection, Federal Trade Commission, addressed what has been on many marketing and media agency executives' minds of late: Consumer privacy.

Free Press Files Amicus Brief in Supreme Court Case on Corporate Personhood

Holiday Shapiro — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 12:31:53 -0500

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, Free Press filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in FCC v. AT&T, Inc., which will be heard by the Supreme Court on Jan. 19, 2011.