Jon GordonAmerican privacy law is outdated and needs to be refreshed to keep up with today’s digital tools, according to a coalition of technology companies and advocacy groups. Microsoft, Google, and AT&T as well as the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU say they will push Congress to revamp the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The law, enacted in 1986, covers government access to personal data.
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Privacy
Smart electric grids are being promoted by the government and conservation groups because they help consumers and power companies closely track energy use. In homes, smart meters keep close watch on power consumption, and report that information back to utilities so consumers can conserve electricity.
Now some privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, are warning that the smart grid could be invasive.
Guest: Jennifer Urban, co-director of the Samuleson Law, Technology and Public Policy Group at the University of California Berkeley
Some users of Chatroulette behave outrageously and inappropriately, partly from a belief they can engage in the random video chats anonymously.
A new mashup, Chatroulettemap.com (NSFW) calls that anonymity into question.
Guest: Dwight Silverman
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, is complaining to the Federal Trade Commission that Facebook’s new information sharing and privacy policies are unfair and deceptive to users.
EPIC and a handful of other groups are urging the FTC to make Facebook turn back the clock on the recent changes, which were designed to persuade users to share more personal information on the wider Internet.
One of our key protections against privacy invasion, the stripping of personally identifiable information from databases, is not working, according to Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado School of Law.
At a congressional hearing last week, Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) wondered aloud whether a technology called deep packet inspection needs to be outlawed. Deep packet inspection allows Internet service providers to examine in great detail an individual’s activity on the Internet – from email to Web surfing habits.
MP3 – iTunes Recent business history is replete with costly mistakes regarding the handling of customer information. According to a new report (PDF) by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, companies fail to to take privacy and free speech issues into account when they design new products and services. Companies need to bake Read more →
While President Obama has been widely praised for his use of the Internet to communicate with the public, not all are happy. For example privacy groups have raised a stink over President Obama’s use of Google’s YouTube as the primary distributor of weekly video addresses on the WhiteHouse.gov Website. Groups such as the Electronic Frontier Read more →