Evolving Privacy Concerns

Text Source: Evolving Privacy Concerns by Erica Naone. Technology Review

Facebook user Sean Lane bought a special gift for his wife. But his secret plans were ruined when information about his purchase was published through the social-networking site's new advertising system, Beacon.

Privacy concerns surfaced shortly after Beacon launched a month ago, prompting the activist group MoveOn, for example, to start a Facebook group protesting Beacon and to organize an online petition.

Stories such as this have many users concerned about their privacy. Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg issued an apology and released a control that lets users turn off the system. But last weekend, experts at Yale Law School's symposium on reputation economies in cyberspace said that Facebook's privacy woes may not be over.

Beacon works by making use of partnerships that Facebook has formed with other websites, including Blockbuster and the New York Times.

Read the full article at Technology Review

Privacy and Public Policy Challenges of Social Technology

Privacy and Public Policy Challenges of Social Technology

Mar 5 2007 - 12:30pm

Stanford Law School Room 280 A

Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook


The rise of social technology through sites like Facebook empowers users to model their connections with other people in the real world and allows them to share information more effectively and efficiently with their friends. Most of this sharing is unquestionably socially beneficial. But fears that some of the sharing can be harmful lead to regulatory and other efforts focusing on privacy, safety, and asserted illegal use of material protected by copyright and other intellectual property regimes.


http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/5173