Internet Lawyer Blog

Organizers claim more than 30,000 people deleted their accounts on the world's most popular social network service (SNS), a drop in Facebook's half-billion-person ocean, but an important symbol.

What did Facebook do wrong?

They've been playing fast and loose with privacy. Every time Facebook restructures its privacy controls—say whether your photos can be seen by only certain friends, all your friends, friends of friends, or the whole world—the new default settings always open up your private information to more viewers. Check this infographic.

They've also been caught sharing private data with advertisers, something they said they wouldn't do.

Why would Facebook do this?

For the money. With more personal information, advertisers can better target their advertising and Facebook can charge more. They can also charge more for anyone wanting to go data mining.

Who cares? Only exhibitionists put stuff on Facebook for strangers to see.

Not true. One-third of all internet users have a Facebook account. In Australia, it'd be more like half. Facebook is no longer about early adopters. It's everyone.

Nor is it about publishing for strangers. People publish personal stuff for friends and family. Many would be horrified to realise others could see it.

Isn't that people's own fault? Surely they knew the risks?

Perhaps. If Facebook didn't keep changing the rules. And if you could actually understand those rules.

Facebook's privacy policy runs for 5800 words. When Facebook changes the system, you're confronted with a request to update your privacy settings—all 50 settings and 170 options. What do most people do? Click "OK". And Facebook pre-selects "everybody" as the new default exposure. They're not the actions of company that genuinely cares about privacy.

David Vaile, who heads the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre at the University of New South Wales, thinks Facebook's privacy model is "dangerous".

Fewer than 40,000 quit Facebook. Isn't Quit Facebook Day a failure?

Losing 0.006% of their user base won't affect Facebook directly. But now they've got a serious PR problem. Word is only just starting to spread to the bulk of their users.

What will happen to Facebook now?

Facebook introduced simpler privacy controls last week, but they still require users to take action to preserve their privacy. With all the media attention, US Congress is now interested.

Facebook wanted to become the world's "social utility", the place where people socialise online. It succeeded. As Microsoft social researcher danah boyd points out, utilities get regulated. If Facebook doesn't clean up its act, it could well be forced to.

However, as boyd says in another essay, Facebook isn't going to disappear, at least not in the short to medium term. For many people, the utility of being able to organise their social lives on Facebook still outweighs the privacy fears—and the hassle of having to move everything to another SNS.

boyd reckons the "tech elites"—which, by her framing, includes geeks such as me—should stay and help force Facebook to change. For my part, enough is enough. I don't do business with a-seholes.

To read more go to http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/06/02/crikey-clarifier-why-facebook-users-are-quitting-including-me

Critics of "three-strikes" laws think society risks disenfranchising large segments of the population, especially with outdated copyright laws more relevant to a world before digital distribution.

In an age of growing attempts by copyright holders to implement so-called "three-strikes" legislation to deal with online piracy, some think Internet disconnection for accused file-sharers could raise concerns over the "right to freedom of expression."

"It's a social inclusion question," says Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre executive director David Vaile.

He warns that disconnecting people from the Internet in many ways disconnects them from society, and that particularly restrictive Australian copyright laws increases the risk that it will happen.

"The number of people who could be chucked off like this is quite huge," he added.

Australian Human Rights Commission president Catherine Branson says the commission hasn't considered the issue yet, but does acknowledge that Internet access may raise concerns "'relevant to the right to freedom of expression."

So far Internet access has been deemed a human right in Finland and Estonia, with calls in Greece and France to follow suit. Attempts do so in France may be somewhat difficult with that country having already enacted "three-strikes" legislation last September.

However, it is worth noting that France's Constitutional Council struck down an earlier version of the law as unconstitutional, finding that the Internet is essential for the "free communication of thoughts," and therefore full civic participation in a democratic society.

To read more go to http://www.zeropaid.com

Dated: June 4, 2010

AT&T Inc. acknowledged Wednesday that a security hole in its website had exposed iPad users' email addresses, a breach that highlights how corporations still have problems protecting private information.

A small group of computer experts that calls itself Goatse Security claimed responsibility for the intrusion, saying the group had exploited an opening in AT&T's website to find numbers that identify iPads connected to AT&T's mobile network.

Those numbers allowed the group to uncover 114,000 email addresses of thousands of iPad customers, including prominent officials in companies, politics and the military, the group said. Gawker Media LLC reported the breach Wednesday. It doesn't appear any financial or billing information was made public.

AT&T, the sole U.S. provider of wireless service for the Apple Inc. tablets, said it had fixed the security problem by Tuesday. It said it would inform all customers whose email addresses and iPad IDs may have been obtained. Apple didn't reply to requests for comment.

"At this point, there is no evidence that any other customer information was shared," AT&T said. "We take customer privacy very seriously, and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted."

To obtain additional information visit http://online.wsj.com

Date: June 10, 2010