Those Google Buzz privacy concerns were a pretty big deal when Google first rolled out the Twitter-esque social layer for Gmail. Inevitably, litigious Americans got together to launch a class action lawsuit in the hope of chipping off a big of cash from Google’s iceberg of money. And, you know, what: they’ve kind of succeeded. Google has just paid out $8.5m to settle the Google Buzz privacy class action lawsuit. However, that money is headed for privacy organisations and not the users with their hands outstretched for cash…
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Tagged ‘privacy’
Thank the Zuckerberg! Facebook Photos has finally stopped showing you pictures of your ex like a sadistic virtual friend. Until recently, the Facebook Photo Memories box had a tendency to throw up pictures of ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends with unpleasant regularity. Facebook’s algorithm picks photos to slap in the Facebook Photo Memories box by figuring out whose updates you’re most interested in but that can be a double-edged sword…
Another week, another Facebook privacy brouhaha. This time it’s Facebook apps under fire and particularly our old friend Farmville. An investigation by the Wall Street Journal says Facebook apps are spilling Facebook ID information out into the world and making it simple for advertisers and firms to grab your info and sell it. Oh dear…
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LinkedIn has a feature which allows you to see who has been looking at your profile, and until now, that feature has only showed you the rough location and the area of work that person was in. Now however, LinkedIn will be adding extra stalker potential to its pages, by telling you the name of the person that’s been sneaking a peek at your professional life (if you’re one of the people who bothers to keep their LinkedIn profile up to date that is). Flood Lite, quite appropriately, asks us to imagine what would happen if we could see this sort of information on Facebook…
Do you keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, or is it gathering dust?
[via Flood Lite]
Ahead of this afternoon’s Facebook announcement comes a serious claim about how, surprise surprise, Facebook deals with our data. First, The Guardian pointed out that the Facebook iPhone app uploads personal phone numbers without asking if you’re using earlier versions of the Facebook iPhone app – the current version gives you a slightly confused warning. Then, we followed the trail to the Apple App Store guidelines, which have caused many an app to be rejected for not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, and found that Facebook could have breached the guidelines on at least two counts.
Update: The current version of the Facebook iPhone app has a warning for syncing users. Those who synced with an old version won’t have seen the warnings though, and we’re still left wondering where some numbers in our Facebook address book have come from, and exactly what usage rights Facebook has over the content. There’s a large remove data button in the Facebook app when you have sync turned on but that appears to just delete Facebook contact info from the phone. Removing the details from the web which have been synced isn’t simply explained. It seems you need to turn off the sync function in the iPhone app and visit this link (which doesn’t currently seem to be working). We’re still chasing Facebook and Apple for comment on the outstanding issues.
If you use the Facebook iPhone app sync feature you might not have realised it does more than add pictures to your address book. A piece by The Guardian’s Charles Arthur points out today that the Facebook iPhone app also uploads all the numbers in your phone’s address book to Facebook, seemingly without warning. It’s a move that puts Facebook on a collision course with Apple, as it breaches app store guidelines. So why is Facebook still in the App store and Apple ads if it’s breaking the rules?
While Facebook privacy concerns have never been a massive issue for its creator Mark Zuckerberg but a new profile in the New Yorker still reveals more about the man himself than he’s usually let on. So what secrets are lurking behind Mark Zuckerberg’s public Facebook profile. Read on for some interesting trivia including just why the site is blue and a fairly shocking admission from the Facebook founder…