Categories
Privacy Security

Witty retort to “I’ve got nothing to hide”

Since I enjoy the discussion of privacy, especially with regards to the internet, and have serious concerns about the number of large corporations which now track every single page view of internet users, this article by Daniel J. Solove regarding surveillance is really compelling. It focuses on the claim of surveillance advocates, “If you have […]

Categories
Privacy The Sky Is Falling

Brin’s Foreshadowing of Google Books Privacy Policy

Ah. The Google Books fiasco. I’ve seen it in the news, have been quietly monitoring the situation, but I just read

Categories
Analytics Privacy Technical

Tutorial on Top-Level-Domain Names, Cookies, and Privacy

Ever notice that when you sign into, oh, say, Gmail, you sign in at www.google.com? What’s up with that? The reasons are technical, but it should be noted that when more and more traffic goes through the same domain name, you should wonder why. Before I go off the nerd deep-end, if you don’t know […]

Categories
Privacy

FeedBurner redirects through google.com

Not that it’s news, but I did some quick analysis of FeedBurner, since I figured out they were acquired by Google, like, two years ago. The links that Google sends visitors to go through

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Privacy

Is anyone worried that Google keeps grabbing more traffic?

Google snapped up reCAPTCHA recently. I’m feeling worried. As well, I must have been in a news bubble there, but they also acquired FeedBurner, in, like, 2007. They just re-branded it recently, which is probably why I didn’t notice. Now, I don’t put on the tinfoil hat very often, but Google keeps snapping up large […]

Categories
Analytics Bugs Email Privacy Security The Sky Is Falling

Google sees 92% of “top” web traffic

I had to write after reading this article in the New York Times. In short, Google “sees” 92 percent of online traffic for the top 100 internet sites. Other big boys, Atlas (60%), Omniture, and Quantcast (54% – I assume combined) don’t even get

Categories
Business Email Marketing Privacy

Monster should be burned at the stake for email practices

I used Monster three years ago, and they just don’t get it. As a quick comment on the service, it’s the “shotgun” effect of

Categories
Privacy Security

Being Safe with Craigslist Sales

We accumulate a lot of junk in life. And when I say we, I think I mean the “American People”, but what I really mean is: me. My mother has perfected the art of accumulating things: She still resides in the house-I-grew-up-in (a 6 bedroom, 5 bathroom home) wherein each and every room is populated […]

Categories
Privacy The Sky Is Falling

Facebook reverts to old Terms of Service (TOS)

Score one for the users. Facebook changed their terms of service back to the pre-February-4th version. Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve […]

Categories
Business Privacy The Sky Is Falling

Facebook TOS “takes away” your ownership rights

As I’ve become embroiled in the hulaballoo over Facebook’s Terms of Service changes on Sunday, there have been many discussions on Facebook (and off) concerning the concept of ownership. Ownership, in the legal sense, related to “rights” over content. (Or Intellectual Property, in this case.) Photos, Images, Drawings, Music, anything you type into a web […]