Last night, what might be called a "transparency battle" erupted between Google and Facebook following Facebook's disclosure of government-related user-data requests: For the six months ending December 31, 2012, the total number of user-data requests Facebook received from any and all government entities in the U.S. (including local, state, and federal, and including criminal and national security-related requests) – was between 9,000 and 10,000. These requests run the gamut – from things like a local sheriff trying to find a missing child, to a federal marshal tracking a fugitive, to a p [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: International | Facebook: Legal | Facebook: Privacy | Google: International | Google: Legal | Google: Privacy | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News

It turns out that for the past roughly 6 years, the US government has been "collecting" or "mining" US citizens' personal data and communications from telcos and Internet companies -- effectively "spying" on US citizens. Those data, it has been alleged, come in large part from direct access to the servers of most of the Internet's biggest brands: Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL and others. (Dropbox was apparently cited in leaked documents as “coming soon.”) These bombshell disclosures follow yesterday's discovery that the US government was collecting Verizon telephon [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Facebook: Privacy | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: PRISM | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Top News

Teenagers use Facebook by far more than any other social media site and have over 400 friends on it. But Twitter and Instagram have massively increased their usage in the past year, according to a new survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, together with Harvard's Berkman Center. The new report covers US teens and social media. There are an enormous number of findings in the document, which was compiled using both surveys and focus groups. You can read or download the full report online. Facebook Tops, Twitter & Instagram Growing According to the report, 95 percent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | MySpace | Top News | Tumblr | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: Statistics

A recent survey conducted by the USC Annenberg Center for Digital Future and Bovitz Inc., revealed "Millennials" (those 18-35)  have a different attitude than Internet users 35 years and older when it comes to sharing their personal data online with businesses. While 70 percent of Millennials agreed with the statement, "No one should ever be allowed to have access to my personal data," 56 percent said they would share their location with a nearby company in return for a relevant coupon or promotional deal. Only 42 percent of users 35 years and older agreed they would share their location. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Privacy | Google: Privacy | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Legal: Privacy | Microsoft: Privacy | Statistics: Online Behavior

Last year, Facebook introduced Custom Audiences, which enables companies to upload customer or prospect databases and target those individuals on Facebook by matching customer IDs with Facebook IDs, phone numbers or email addresses (subject to privacy protections). That capability was recently expanded with "Lookalike Audiences," which enable marketers to find segments that generally match specific Custom Audiences on Facebook. Today, Facebook further extended the functionality of Custom Audiences by announcing that information from third-party data vendors Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom and [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Privacy | Top News

If you're a privacy advocate you might find it creepy or worrisome. But if you're a marketer, you might be thrilled by the moves that Facebook is making to bring the online and offline worlds together. AdAge highlights a number of initiatives that Facebook has undertaken to both show the offline sales impact of its ads as well as to bring offline consumer data to online targeting. Both involve the two-way flow of consumer data between online and traditional offline databases. Facebook isn't the first company to try any of this, but its scale puts it in a better position than others to su [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Privacy | Top News

The AP is reporting that a German court has invalidated a decision of the German privacy regulator, which opposes Facebook's real names/identities policy. Privacy regulators oppose the Facebook policy on the grounds that German and European privacy and free-speech rules prohibit a ban on fake names. However the court's decision is not based on German law. According to the AP report, "The administrative court in northern German Schleswig argued in its ruling Thursday that German privacy laws weren't applicable because Facebook has its European headquarters in Ireland - which has less far-rea [...]

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Looking for a new way to stalk find your nearby Facebook friends? According to Bloomberg, a new Facebook app is being finalized that will allow users to see the location of their Facebook friends nearby. Using GPS, the app would allow users to show or view exact location detail when shared with a friend. This functionality is very similar to the Google Latitude product & Apple's Find My Friends app. Both of these applications drew heavy criticism for the potential privacy issues that can arise from broadcasting one's location. Most of the concerns occur not with the product itself, but [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Privacy | Top News

Every year at SXSW Interactive (one of the largest interactive conferences in the world), the question always comes around to which new technology or mobile app will make a big splash. In the past, Twitter (2006) and foursquare (2009) have dominated conversations at the event where more than 100,000 of the world's most social digerati descend upon Austin, TX. Last year, the belles of the ball were three companies -- Sonar, Highlight and banjo -- which introduced the concept of something called a proximity service. The value proposition with this type of service is that if you connect the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Check-In Services | Facebook: Privacy | Foursquare | Mobile Marketing | Mobile Marketing Column | Twitter: Mobile

A new Pew survey on Facebook usage patterns leads me to want to coin a new term: "Facay" -- for "Facebook vacation." According to survey data collected in December, "61 percent of current Facebook users say that at one time or another in the past they have voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more." Pew says that its data, based on a survey of 1,006 US adults, "indicate there is considerable fluidity in the Facebook user population." In addition to the above finding, 20 percent of survey respondents say they no longer use Facebook, while 8 percent [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Privacy | Facebook: Statistics | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media

One of the most powerful advertising vehicles available on Facebook will probably turn out to be its still little-known Custom Audiences tool. Introduced in August last year, Custom Audiences enables Facebook marketers to target their existing users based on Facebook ID, phone number or email address. Facebook says that it has taken pains to prevent user data from "leaking" and to safeguard privacy by hashing phone numbers and email addresses. It doesn't store third party data or otherwise add that data to user profiles. On the surface, the program will potentially seem scary to privacy [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Privacy | Features & Analysis | Top News

If you use popular social content creation site Storify your Private Facebook posts likely aren't so private. AGBeat's Lani Rosales uncovered a serious privacy issue around Facebook posts published to the site by Storify. Using the Storify app or embed code users can see posts (public or private) that have been published to Storify. To test the theory Rosales joined a secret group around health issues and added a post using Storify. Due to Facebook's privacy setting any Facebook friends could not see the post, or the group. However, when the Storify embed code was used, the private pos [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy

Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, wasn't happy when a private photo she shared on Facebook when public. Unhappy to the point of chastising people in general that digital etiquette is "not about privacy settings" but "human decency." Actually, it's a lot about privacy settings, and even Facebook's improved systems makes this hard. The Private Photo That Went Public There are plenty of places covering the background of what happened today. BuzzFeed has one of the best rundowns, showing the picture of the Zuckerberg family all being amused as they try the new Facebook Po [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy | Top News

Mark Zuckerberg initiated Facebook's purchase of Instagram back in April of this year. Today,  Instagram officially "friend-ed" Facebook in its privacy policy. The new updated privacy policy will allow the two social networks to share information between the two groups. These changes will take effect on  January 2013 and will allow Instagram to "share user content and your information" including cookie-data, location data, device data and more with Facebook owned companies. This change comes on the heels of Instagram cutting off access of its photos to Twitter, just weeks be [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

No longer will users be required to navigate through both account & privacy settings pages to manage  sensitive Facebook information. The social networking giant is releasing a series of features that simplifies privacy controls thanks to new tools, a centralized settings page and simple privacy shortcuts. Facebook's privacy has come under fire legally and competitively with the ease of Google+'s selected sharing and straightforward privacy. The new changes being implemented by Facebook will make privacy an elementary procedure for users. Better Privacy Controls & Shortcuts T [...]

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Last week the internet was abuzz with the deal that Bulgarian digital rights activist, Bogomil Shopov scored. He managed to purchase 1.1 million user email addresses for the meager price of $5. The majority of the email addresses were from the US, Canada, UK and Europe and featured email addresses, user names and Facebook account numbers. Initially the data was believed to be secured through Facebook apps run by the list seller. The listing stated: "The information in this list has been collected through our Facebook apps and consists only of active Facebook users, mostly from the US, Ca [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy | Legal: Privacy

See that "Like" button just above this sentence? The majority of folks think that the number displayed is made up of all those who've actually "liked" this article. It's not the case however -- the Like button is an aggregate score from a variety of Facebook actions, including links shared within private messages. TheNextWeb uncovered a bug last week that was actually providing two Likes for data shared privately. Facebook did confirm that the issue of double counts was a bug, but did also confirm that shared messages do count towards the overall "like" data.  In fact the Facebook Develop [...]

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Facebook is serious about using real names for user profiles, so much so that they are now recruiting user to help identify their friends' fake names. Screenshots have surfaced of new prompt that allows a user to confirm, deny or not answer whether or not a friend is using a real name. All responses are anonymous and Facebook states that answers "won't affect your friend's account." Facebook has confirmed that this is a legitimate prompt with TheNextWeb.  They also reiterated that isn't prompt isn't being used for enforcement, rather for a better understanding of Facebook users. Face [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Facebook | Facebook: Privacy

As was widely expected, the Federal Trade Commission has given final approval to the privacy settlement it reached with Facebook last year. The agreement -- unlike the $22.5 million agreement with Google announced yesterday -- doesn't call for any monetary penalty. It does, however, require Facebook to undergo privacy audits from an independent third party every two years for 20 years. Additionally, the company says it will now give consumers "clear and prominent" notice of its privacy practices, obtaining "express consent" before sharing their information beyond the limits to which were or [...]

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Facebook's automated system of suggesting image tags based on facial recognition has brought the company another formal privacy investigation in Europe, according to Bloomberg. This time it's Norway seeking to determine whether Facebook has violated its privacy rules. Norway’s data-protection agency joins other regulators from the EU investigating the feature. Norway is not an EU member state but is reportedly coordinating its initiative with other states, including an ongoing Irish probe. Germany was also investigating Facebook facial recognition but has suspended its investigation and d [...]

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