Economic Value of the Advertising Supported Internet
What is the value of all the advertising on the internet? The IAB has a report out. Some interesting facts and figures including a nice chart on where all those internet workers are located. One area that is not covered, and where a proper methodology would be hard but I think possible, would be drilling […]
White House Cookies: Wrap-Up of the Open Government Brainstorming: Participation
The White House Open Government site will be hosting discussion of a few issues on Friday, including suggestions by FPF, CDT, EFF and Professor Peter Swire about updating the current government policy around the use of cookies. The topic listed is as follows: Update the cookies policy to come up to speed with the latest […]
Facebook Ad Network Crackdown
We are glad to see reports of Facebook cracking down on ad networks improperly using user data, as well as deceptive come-ons. We believe that many of the of the problems of the online advertising system have been due to publishers and advertising leaving privacy and ad quality issues entirely to their ad network partners. […]
"Know Privacy" Report Contains Interesting Observations
“KnowPrivacy” is a collaborative research project by Class of 2009 graduates of the Masters program at the University of California Berkeley School of Information. FPF advisory board member Chris Hoofnagle helped advise the students. In the project, the students examined the common practices among website operators of collecting, sharing and analyzing data about their users, […]
PrivacyCamp Washington, DC 2009
Co-sponsored by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum (among others), this inaugural “unconference” brings together interested individuals and organizations to share knowledge and foster collaboration. The event is June 20th, 2009, from 8AM to 5PM at the Center for American Progress (1333 H Street […]
FPF Files Comments to FCC on National Broadband Plan
Yesterday, the Future of Privacy Forum filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the National Broadband Plan, which the Commission will be formulating over the next several months (FCC Notice of Inquiry Docket – 09-51). As a think tank focused on promoting greater transparency and consumer online data use, we believe that privacy […]
Digg Will Charge Less for Ads It's Users Like – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com
Looks like Digg is doing something quite interesting – respecting its users in deciding how to display ads.
Facebook to Eliminate Regional Networks
This is a very good move by Facebook because it resolves an issue we have always been concerned about — people who join, make their profile available only to friends and believe it is private. But then they join the Washington or other region network and dont realize that millions of people can now see […]
Volume of the Obama Administration on Privacy
Our friend Saul Hansell at the New York Times has a piece today entitled “The Obama Administration’s Silence on Privacy, ” which references a speech given yesterday at the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference. The speech was made by Susan Crawford, a science and technology advisor to President Obama. While we are often in synch […]
Can having the wrong friends online affect your credit rating?
I understand the idea behind marketers identifying users who have a lot of friends or are very active online and considering them “influencers”. I “get” the marketing value of enhancing a users profile with information from a range of their online public activity. Providing transparency to users and control over this type of data collection […]