On Monday, Facebook modified its help pages to tell people that if they wanted to remove their accounts entirely, they could e-mail the company to have it done. But on Tuesday, representatives of Facebook stopped short of saying the company would introduce a one-step delete account option.
Data & Privacy
Facebook Says They Will Delete Your Account If You Email And Ask Nicely
By 2.13.08
Joining Facebook Is Like Joining The Mafia. Just Try To Leave.
By 2.11.08
“It’s like the Hotel California,” said Nipon Das, 34, a director at a biotechnology consulting firm in Manhattan, who tried unsuccessfully to delete his account this fall. “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Anorexic? Your Insurance Company Could Subpeona Your Writings On MySpace And Facebook
By 2.2.08
How’s this for twisted: An insurance company, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, have demanded that the parents of minor children who suffer from anorexia turn over their children’s writings on MySpace and Facebook, as well as any emails where they discuss their problems.
Dairy Queen Owner Exclaims "Good God Almighty, Where's My Manager?" After Workers Moon Drive-Thru Window
By 1.19.08
Hey St. John’s Dairy Queen workers, you forgot to make your Facebook group private. Now your hilarious little videos of each other mooning the drive-thru and waging indoor snowball fights are all over Canadian television. They just don’t understand your jokes about “using meat the next day that wasn’t kept overnight in the cooler.” Neither do the health inspectors.
Someone From Arkansas Is Selling Wiis For Only $99!!!
By 1.17.08
Quick, type in all of your credit card information before he runs out of inventory! Omgwtf $99 Wiis! The website, http://www.wiifor99.com—which is being advertised on Facebook, according to a reader—consists of the two screens shown above and that’s it. What a lazy con.
Do You Care About Privacy Or Just Unpleasant Surprises?
By 12.12.07
Seth Godin thinks that for all the talk about privacy, what people really object to is being “surprised.”
If your credit card company called you up and said, “we’ve been looking over your records and we see that you’ve been having an extramarital affair. We’d like to offer you a free coupon for VD testing…” you’d freak out, and for good reason.
By 12.5.07
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Buckling under a blistering poopy pile of criticism, Facebook will now let users turn off Beacon completely. [Facebook]
How To Block Facebook's Beacon
By 12.5.07
Don’t like Facebook secretly tracking your online purchases and telling your friends what you bought? Users of the Firefox we browser can use an easy add-on that jams the beacon’s signal. Just install the BlockSite add-on, and then add http://*facebook.com/beacon/* as one of the blocked sites. Make sure to keep those asterisks in. If that sounds a little complicated, this step-by-step walk-through at Wikihow shows you how it’s done. Alternatively, you could also add the same url to AdBlockPlus, another Firefox extension.
Facebook Tries To Keep Founder's Private Papers Off Internet, Fails
By 12.4.07
In a funny twist of fate, last week Facebook failed in its attempt to force a site to remove incriminating and/or embarrassing personal information about Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. We think Facebook missed a real opportunity here—they should have distributed the documents personally and attached ads to them.
List Of Companies That Participate In Facebook's Beacon Spy Program
By 12.4.07
One of our readers yesterday left a couple of interesting links in the comments section of our Beacon post. They provide the names of the companies that Facebook says are participating in its poorly conceived spy program Beacon. Here they are:
Facebook Alters Shopping Stalker
By 11.30.07
The New York Times says that Facebook will be making a slight change to “Beacon” the feature that tracks users purchases throughout the web and broadcasts them to their friends.
Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users’ Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time.
Facebook Might Revamp Shopping Stalking Feature
By 11.29.07
BusinessWeek says they have a source close to Facebook that says executives are discussing changes to the controversial marketing tool.
Facebook Ruins Christmas?
By 11.21.07
MoveOn.org is annoyed with Facebook over privacy issues. Apparently, people on Facebook can see what you’ve been buying on sites unrelated to Facebook and share this information with your friends. According to MoveOn.org, this is not only a violation of privacy (the feature is opt-out rather than opt-in), it’s been ruining Christmas/Holidays/Birthdays/Whatever for Facebook users.
By 10.16.07
../../../..//2007/10/16/verizon-may-have-admitted/
Verizon may have admitted it gives out customer info without warrants, but AT&T and Qwest both refused to give Congress any information on their participation in the government’s wire-tapping activities, saying they needed permission from Bush administration first. [Reuters]
Free Facebook Gift: Walmart Ghost Cookie
By 10.15.07
Today’s free gift that social network site Facebook users can electronically give to each other appears to be a frosting-coated ghost cookie in a plastic bag. Oh, and the cookie says Walmart on it. Spooky. Now is time for a fun Halloween game. Make this simple marketing ploy into a metaphor, and then read a lot into it.
AT&T's New TOS "Respects Freedom Of Expression"
By 10.11.07
BoingBoing reports that AT&T has altered the language in its reviled TOS to say it thinks it’s okay for people to speak their mind. Really, they hard-wired that into the legalese:
After Blogs Cry "Censorship," AT&T Says It Will Change Terms Of Service
By 10.10.07
After getting roundly whiplashed for having a clause in their Terms of Service that could be interpreted as meaning they reserved the right to terminate the service of any customer who criticized them, AT&T DSL reached out to several blogs today with the following commitment to change their ToS:
We are revising the terms of service to clarify our intent. The language in question will be revised to reflect AT&T’s respect for our customers’ right to express opinions and concerns over any matter they wish. And we will make clear that we do not terminate service because a customer expresses their opinion about AT&T.
We’ll reserve judgment until the pixels dry. As of now, their ToS is still the same.
Is It Legal To Unlock The iPhone?
By 10.8.07
According to a Slate columnist, not only is it legal, but it’s ethical and fun. (Fun?) “I did just throw down more than $400 for this little toy,” he writes. “I’m no property-rights freak, but that iPhone is now my personal property, and that ought to stand for something.”
