FTC Settlement - Twitter Barred for 20 Years From Misleading

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Peter Vogel

President-Elect Obama’s Twitter account was hacked “offering his more than 150,000 followers a chance to win $500 in free gas.” Twitter settled the FTC’s charges that “that it deceived consumers and put their privacy at risk by failing to safeguard their personal information, marking the agency’s first such case against a social networking service.” In my recent testimony before the Texas Senate I highlighted the problem with violating FTC privacy laws, and obviously this is just the beginning of Social Media claims that we will all deal with about Internet privacy.

FTC Settlement Terms

Here’s what Twitter agreed to as part of its settlement:

Twitter will be barred for 20 years from misleading consumers about the extent to which it protects the security, privacy, and confidentiality of nonpublic consumer information, including the measures it takes to prevent unauthorized access to nonpublic information and honor the privacy choices made by consumers. The company also must establish and maintain a comprehensive information security program, which will be assessed by an independent auditor every other year for 10 years.

Twitter Adds Location to Messages

Recently Twitter announced that it would allow “users tag their messages with their location.” So given the FTC settlement it seems that adding location would seriously impact privacy if one can easily learn when the tweets are originating.

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No Surprise - Very Bad News for Webmail - Passwords Exposed for Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo!

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Peter Vogel

Apparently large scale phishing attacks resulted in compromises to tens of thousands of webmail accounts, hardly a surprise. However it is pretty amazing that so many individuals fall for the phishing tricks. As a matter of fact this morning I got an email purportedly from PayPal indicating that my account had been hacked and if I would only provide personal information including credit card information, social security number, date of birth, well you get it. Of course it would be incredibly stupid for me, or thousands of these phishing victims to believe the emails that come to our inboxes. What can we do to protect ourselves?

OnGuard Online

Apparently few people take the time to review OnGuard Online before they get duped by phishing and spam attacks. However the OnGuard Online is a great website hosted by a number of federal agencies and non-profits including: Federal Trade Commission, Department of Commerce, Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, Computing Technology Industry Association, National Crime Prevention Council, Better Business Bureau, and Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). OnGuard Online provides cute videos and games to educate consumers about the risks associated with: phishing, computer security, email scams, spam, VOIP, among other topics. The OnGuard Online site also provides publications and allows consumers to file complaints.

Federal Government to the Rescue?

If the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003 is any indication it’s probably unlikely that the US government can do much to protect citizens since there seems to be an increase in spam and phishing since 2003, not a reduction as was hoped when the 2003 law was passed. There are estimates that 80% of all email is unsolicited which should be reason enough for individuals to be more leery of suspicious phishing emails. Hotmail claims it has 400 million accounts so the number of compromised accounts could be huge and reports from the APWG estimate that phishing attacks will continue. Since the US government does not seem capable of managing cyber security and the White House cannot get anyone to be Cyber Czar is it any wonder that the webmail accounts are compromised by the thousand?
 

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Privacy - More Congressional Questions

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Peter Vogel
The US Congress is asking more questions about consumer privacy and email collection/surveillance at a time when President Obama is highlighting cybersecurity. So when asked about consumer’s opt-out from personal data collection, Yahoo! privacy chief’s admitted that fewer than 1% opted-out and Google’s deputy general counsel didn’t even know how many users opted-out. Of course the primary reason virtually no one chooses the opt-out is a lack of understanding about much privacy individuals actually have on the Internet and a false sense of security and privacy.
 

Behavior Advertising

A recent privacy blog discussed the February 2009 Federal Trade Commission Staff Report entitled “Self-Regulatory Principles For Online Behavioral Advertising,” and the opt-out questions posed by Congress are at the heart of whether new Internet privacy laws are required. The Internet economy, and certainly Google is chief example, are dependent upon the current behavioral advertising model and surely will be impacted by a change in the privacy laws in the US.

eMail Surveillance

Most US citizens believe that their emails are private. However employee privacy regarding emails in the workplace (not personal webmail) may be misplaced since in the US emails are private to employers and in the EU, Canada, and other countries emails are private to the employees. Nevertheless there are more questions being asked in Congress about how many e-mails are being collected in the name of security. The recent report that National Security Agency exceed its authority by intercepting emails and phone calls continues to be debated in Congress. Given President Obama’s cybersecurity agenda it will be interesting to see how the US congress can reconcile the expectation of personal privacy and need for Internet security. These debates will continue as the Internet evolves. Stay tuned for more.
 

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Social Networking - More Chinese Censorship and More Users

Posted on June 7, 2009 by Peter Vogel

No surprise that the Chinese government blocked social networking on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown at Tiananmen Square. As a matter of fact just before the Olympic Games began in August 2008 China limited Internet access as the government wanted control over information before and during the Games. Many people from the West were surprised since China was hosting the international Games, but it seems logical that a totalitarian government would not change its behavior in such a circumstance.

More Social Networking

It’s about time that smaller businesses got the clue that they need to use social networking to promote their activities, so it’s no surprise to read reports that small businesses are directing their efforts to attract traffic with social networks. Targeted advertising works even better on the Internet, but learning how to identify potential customers has always been a primary goal of marketing.


In February 2009 the Federal Trade Commission issued its FTC Staff Report entitled “Self-Regulatory Principles For Online Behavioral Advertising” following public hearings and “sixty-three comments on the Principles from eighty-seven stakeholders, including individual companies, business groups, academics, consumer and privacy advocates.” Since the US relies on self-regulation of privacy these comments were all considered before releasing the Principles. One need merely review Google’s Analytics site to how much information about is captured about our activity on the Internet. The fact that this monetized is one thing, but the potential loss of privacy has many alarmed.

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