Archive for the ‘ privacy ’ Category

Year in Review

Wow!  That was fast. I”ve been running my own law firm for over a year.  It’s been a blast and I’ve been very fortunate — quite a bit of exciting and interesting work came to my door last year. Some of the highlights include: Managing a dispute from initial demand letter to arbitration award — [ READ MORE ]

The Best Part of Summer

Fresh Tomatoes Galore. After an uncommonly cool summer, we’re finally getting some heat (it’s over 100F outside right now), and the plants are finally starting to produce like mad. In clockwise order in all of their gorgeous glory above, there’s green zebra, thessoloniki, white oxheart, ananas noir, and sweet horizon. But wait, there’s more… …orange [ READ MORE ]

The Latest Case Against Facebook

On May 5, 2010, The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint with the FTC regarding Facebook’s privacy practices (or lack thereof). The biggest two complaints, to my reading are that (1) Facebook unilaterally tried to convert some information previously designated as private to public; and (2) Facebook changed its developer data retention policy [ READ MORE ]

Paul Ohm: Anonymization Has Failed

I recently had the privilege of attending a talk where Paul Ohm presented the main ideas behind his latest research paper. I found his reporting on re-identifying users from supposedly non-personally identifiable information fascinating: -87.1% of Americans can be uniquely identified by their 5-digit zip code combined with the date, month, and year of their [ READ MORE ]

Schools? Google? Who isn’t invading privacy?

Today was an interesting day in privacy lawsuit news. First, there are the parents of a Pennsylvania high school student who filed a complaint against the school alleging that the school remotely activated a school-issued laptop and took a picture of the child. At home. Without his or their knowledge. And without his or their [ READ MORE ]

The *other* long tail (6 months? 9 months?)

There’s a debate going on right now. How long should the search engines be able to save your search data (associated with your IP address, or your cookie, or your unique identifier associated with your login to their services)? 6 months? 9 months? Less? More? From a business perspective, this information is very useful. The [ READ MORE ]

Right to Forget? It appears that France is considering legislation that would require online data to be deleted/removed after a certain amount of time. Ignoring the pragmatic implementation issues, assuming a government could actually make this law work — the debate raises several very interesting policy and culture issues. -How long and how far should [ READ MORE ]

Losing my Anonymity So, I’m considering joining the kids. You know, the open, non-private, freakishly free kids. And, I’m thinking of creating a non-fake account on facebook, where I admit who I am. And, I’m thinking of linking to this blog. So, I’m scouring the last 7 years, to make sure I’m okay with this. [ READ MORE ]

On Privacy Today, I attended a 3/4 day long conference on internet privacy. That wasn’t how they billed it, but that’s how it ended up playing out. Many very smart people said many smart things, and most of them have my brain spinning and thinking and evolving. Perhaps if I collect my thoughts I’ll post [ READ MORE ]