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Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers

So now we know

Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers: “Report: Facebook caught sharing secret data with advertisers
By Eric Bangeman | Last updated about 14 hours ago
The privacy issues that have been hounding Facebook may be coming to a head. A report in the Wall Street Journal indicates that the Facebook, along with MySpace, Digg, and a handful of other social-networking sites, have been sharing users’ personal data with advertisers without users’ knowledge or consent.

The data shared includes names, user IDs, and other information sufficient to enable ad companies such as the Google-owned DoubleClick to identify distinct user profiles. Some of the sites in question, including MySpace and Facebook, stopped sharing the data after the Journal asked them about it. The surreptitious data sharing was first noticed (PDF) by researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and AT&T Labs in August 2009, who brought it up with the sites in question. It wasn’t until WSJ contacted them that changes were made.

Not surprisingly, Facebook appears to have gone farther than the other sites when it comes to sharing data. When Facebook’s users clicked on ads appearing on a profile page, the site would at times provide data such as the username behind the click, as well as the user whose profile page from which the click came. ‘If you are looking at your profile page and you click on an ad, you are telling that advertiser who you are,’ Harvard Business School professor Ben Edelman told the Journal. Advertisers contacted by the paper said that they were unaware of the additional data and did not make use of it.

Facebook has tweaked its privacy policy throughout its history, with the most recent moves to open up more user information to the public drawing heavy criticism and FTC complaints. Users have also had a tough time navigating the site’s often-Byzantine privacy controls, which has led to a trickle of user defections. With these latest revelations about Facebook ignoring industry standards, not to mention its own privacy policies, that trickle may turn into a torrent.”

(Via .)

Anti-identity-theft huckster has had identity stolen at least 13 times

We’ve ben talking about security at the Clubhouse and we mentioned this guy

heh  heh

Anti-identity-theft huckster has had identity stolen at least 13 times: “
Todd Davis’s identity has been stolen at least 13 times. Davis is CEO of LifeLock, a company that sells anti-identity-theft services, and their ads feature Davis’s Social Security Number (because their service works so well he can afford to publicize his SSN without being compromised. Collection agencies across the country are trying to get him to cough up for debts that other people have racked up with the SSN they cleaned from the ad.

LifeLock has already been fined $12,000,000 by the FTC for deceptive advertising. The Phoenix New Times has a long, investigative story on LifeLock’s business practices and the (in)efficacy of its services. It’s a pretty comprehensive look at how to make something that doesn’t work very well and compound that with bad business practices.

LifeLock’s co-founders, Richard Todd Davis and Robert J. Maynard Jr., told reporters across the country that Maynard had once spent a week in the Maricopa County jail, falsely accused of crimes, because his identity had been stolen. The 2003 incident was the inspiration for the company, they said.

Official records and interviews with authorities in Nevada proved the story a fable. Maynard had been arrested and jailed here, all right — because he’d failed to pay back a $16,000 gambling marker at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas. Like bouncing a check, that’s a crime. Nevada authorities dropped the charges after Maynard, from his cell, managed to scrape together the cash.

The article also revealed that Maynard, the Valley businessman who was principally behind LifeLock during its 2005 inception, was banned for life in the 1990s from the credit-repair industry.

Then there was this ironic tidbit: Maynard’s own father, Valley optometrist Robert Maynard Sr., accused him of identity theft.

 

 

Cracking LifeLock: Even After a $12 Million Penalty for Deceptive Advertising, the Tempe Company Can’t Be Honest About Its Identity-Theft-Protection Service

(via Threat Level)



 

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(Via Boing Boing.)

TidBITS Networking: How to Protect Your Privacy from Facebook

How to Protect Your Privacy from Facebook

by Rich Mogull Send Email to Author

Claiming over 400 million users, Facebook is the dominant social networking service on the Internet, uniting families, school friends past and present, and international political movements. Facebook started as a restricted social networking site for college students back in 2004, before opening up in 2006 and taking over from competitors such as MySpace. Facebook has since morphed into a behemoth of a platform with a diverse set of features, such as real-time multiplayer gaming, online chat, retail operations, event management, and thousands of small applications. From sending birthday cards to trading “flair,” Facebook seems to have it all.

via db.tidbits.com

good advice

Posted via web from mclasen’s posterous

Radio Shack’s 1986 electronic book

Radio Shack’s 1986 electronic book: “ Here’s a 1986 ad for Radio Shack’s ‘Electronic Book,’ which connected to your computer’s joystick port, and the interacted with software supplied on a cassette or disk. The peripheral cost $24.95, and new titles were $19.95 to $24.95 — so the hardware prices have increased tenfold (unadjusted for inflation) in 25 years, while media costs have actually decreased.

Radio Shack 1986

Now there’s my book reader!!


 

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(Via Boing Boing.)