If you’re a Google user, be prepared to possibly have your name, photos, and any comments you might have made using that account used in ads that Google will make money from. The company quietly announced a change to its Terms of Service this morning, giving itself the ability to exploits user profiles in “Shared Endorsements.” [More]
Data & Privacy
Who Is To Blame For Creating Hashtags?
By 10.4.13
Full disclosure: I despise hashtags. They’re visually distracting and over-deployed, to the point where many Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook posts now look like someone got drunk and passed out on his keyboard’s number pad. Even worse, the jerks in marketing have grabbed hold of the hashtag, desperately slapping a “#” before their brand names, all for the purpose of tracking public sentiment and creating really neat-looking graphs and charts to justify spending more money on hashtag-based marketing. To misappropriate a quote from The Thin Red Line, “This great evil. Where does it come from? How’d it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from?” [More]
Court: Facebook “Likes” Are Protected Speech, Shouldn’t Get You Fired From Your Job
By 9.18.13
If your boss doesn’t like that you “like” a competitor on Facebook, can you be fired from your job? According to a federal appeals court, the answer is no, as hitting a “like” button on Facebook is Constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. [More]
Your E-ZPass Might Be Tracking You Everywhere, Not Just Tollbooths
By 9.13.13 — Updated: 9.15.13
When you get a toll-paying transponder like the E-ZPass, you assume that it just sort of sits there until you drive through a toll booth. That’s not true. Maybe, according to a recent presentation at DEFCON, you should put your E-ZPass away unless you’re actually paying a toll right now. [More]
FTC Looking Into Recent Change To Facebook Privacy Policy
By 9.12.13
Back in 2011, Facebook settled charges with the Federal Trade Commission that the website deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information private, only to repeatedly allow that information to be shared and made public. The settlement requires that Facebook get explicit permission from users before sharing such information, but the FTC wants to know if the website’s latest privacy update violates that agreement. [More]
Facebook’s Policy Changes Will Mean Your Content Can Be Used In Ads If You Use Facebook
By 8.29.13 — Updated: 8.30.13
Facebook has learned its lesson about not explaining what content it will use in ads, after that whole Sponsored Stories legal saga that finally concluded recently, but that doesn’t mean the social media company doesn’t still want to use your pretty mug to market products and services to your pals. It’s just explaining ahead of time that it’ll happen, and if you want to use the site at all you’ll have to be cool with that . Oh, and you won’t be compensated. Facebook is free, after all. [More]
New York Times, Twitter, Huffington Post Hit By Hack Attack
By 8.28.13
Despite the fact that at first, I thought it was just my fault that I couldn’t get on the New York Times’ website yesterday, it turns out that the news site, as well as Twitter and the Huffington Post, all briefly lost control of some of their sites yesterday after a hit from the Syrian Electronic Army group of hackers. That’s the same bunch that struck The Onion, the Associated Press, the Washington Post and a slew more in the past. [More]
NYTimes.com Goes Down, Saying It’s “Experiencing Technical Difficulties”
By 8.27.13
Since 2:24 today I’ve been trying to read an article about why I should bring my lunch to work on NYTimes.com but I can’t, and not because I suddenly lost the ability to read. Why? The New York Times Twitter says the site is experiencing “technical difficulties.” But a spokeswoman tells Jeff Bercovici at Forbes.com that: “Our initial assessment is that this is most likely the result of a malicious external attack,” she emails. “We are working to fix the problem.” [via Twitter and Forbes.com] [More]
Facebook Provided User Info In 79% Of Requests From U.S. Government
By 8.27.13
Earlier today, Facebook released a report on governmental data requests made during the last six months, showing that there were between 11,000 and 12,000 requests made by the U.S. government during that short period of time, and that the website shared at least some information in nearly 4 out of 5 requests. [More]
Can’t Get Approved For A Loan? Blame Your Facebook Friends
By 8.26.13
Maybe it’s time you finally accept your great-uncle Aloysius’ Facebook friend request — if not out of familial love, perhaps if he happens to be particularly credit-worthy. Because if a new report is to be believed, not only do you have to worry about how that one lost video rental dinged your credit score, but you could miss out on a loan if your social media contacts are deemed to be financially unsavory. [More]
Mark Zuckerberg Wants World’s 5 Billion Without Internet To Get Connected (And On Facebook?)
By 8.21.13
Forget trying to buy the world a Coke — Mark Zuckerberg would like to connect the five billion people on the planet who don’t have Internet with the rest of the online world. And while yes, of course, since he’s the founder and CEO of Facebook, one might assume that the more of those people who have access to the World Wide Web, the more there’ll be on Facebook. But he says it’s really about connecting people. On Facebook. Okay, really — just about connecting. [More]
Domino’s Pizza Is So Used To Complaints, It Can’t Take A Compliment
By 8.8.13
You know how some people are conditioned to believe that any statement directed at them must be a complaint, so they don’t know how to react when someone says something nice? That’s apparently the mindset of whatever robot responds to customers on the Domino’s Pizza Facebook page. [More]
Cafe Owner Learns That Attempts At Snark Will Not Go Over Well With Customers On Facebook
By 8.7.13
It is totally okay to be a sarcastic person, as we live in a world where each and every human is unique snowflake. But there comes a time when perhaps it’s not a bad idea to curb that snarky nature, like when dealing with messy customers. A cafe owner in Washington learned that lesson after she posted about a group of crumb-spewing people who had frequented her business. [More]
Dear Facebook: Please Do Not Start Running Video Ads
By 8.5.13
Ever since Facebook went public in 2012, the pressure has been on for the social networking site (if one considers posting baby photos and Buzzfeed links to be “social networking”) to start leveraging its massive audience for ad revenue. And back when its stock price was around the cost of lunch at a diner, auto-play video ads seemed inevitable. And even after recent upticks in Facebook’s value, it looks like the company wants to drive y’all away with these ads that consumers avoid like the plague. [More]
Chipotle Just Grateful No One Sent Nude Pics During Odd Twitter Episode
By 7.22.13
“What is cilantro?” “Where is the avocado store?” “Do I have a tweet?” Those are very normal questions, but perhaps not the sort one might expect showing up on Chipotle’s official Twitter account. After a somewhat bizarre string of mini missives yesterday, the company says everything appears to be fine now. [More]
5 Sample Letters That Get Debt Collectors Out Of Your Face
By 7.16.13 — Updated: 5.23.17
Calls from debt collectors can make your life miserable when you’re already pretty miserable from being in so much debt. It’s even worse when you already paid the debt, or it wasn’t yours to begin with–what should you do next? That’s why sample letters can be a good starting point, or you can just send them as is. [More]
Facebook Takes My Post Promotion Money, Offers No Way Out
By 7.12.13
All Carla wanted to do was find out how much it would cost her to promote a status update on Facebook. You know, in case something so important came up that she needed to pay Facebook to share it with the people who she already thought she was sharing her posts with. Only something went wrong and she ended up buying a promoted status. Facebook won’t let her take it back, and there are no humans there to help. [More]
Facebook To Pull Ads From Pages With “Violent, Graphic Or Sexual Content”
By 6.28.13
A day after Google alerted Blogger users that they could keep publishing explicit content but they won’t be able to profit from it, Facebook has told advertisers that they will no longer need to worry about their ads showing up on pages with content that might get them into hot water by association. [More]
