A Welcome Call for ECPA Reform
A lot has changed technologically, and otherwise, since the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) was enacted in 1986. In addition, the law has never been a model of clarity. I litigated a case under ECPA in the late-90’s, McVeigh v. Cohen, representing an individual against the government when the Navy violated ECPA by obtaining online […]
Walkthrough: Click at Your Own Risk
Walkthrough: Click at Your Own Risk FootballOutsider.com By Mike Tanier March 10, 2010 None of the scenarios listed below have happened yet, as far as we know: A star college quarterback sends a text message to five friends, bragging about his performance against a rival school. One of the friends forwards it to another set […]
Microsoft to delete full Search IP addresses after 6 months
The news is just in that Microsoft is announcing that it will delete full IP addresses from their Bing search engine log files after 6 months. In July 2009, when Microsoft and YAHOO announced their search partnership, we predicted that real competition in the search arena between Google and Microsoft could lead to privacy benefits […]
In Trust We Trust
Business Week’s cover story this week is about a commodity that many businesses don’t seem to have in abundance these days: trust. Only 44 percent of Americans in a recent public survey said that they trusted business, the lowest rating since 2001. According to BW, that’s led to some serious soul-searching in corporate America: Not […]
Facebook Addresses Canada's Privacy Commissioner Concerns
Several weeks ago the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, issued a comprehensive report about Facebook’s privacy policies and asked the company to address several privacy concerns they laid out or face imminent legal action. In response, Facebook announced today a series of changes that intended to address the concerns offered by the Commissioner. […]
FPF’s Reply Comments to the Federal Websites Cookie Policy
The Future of Privacy Forum is providing the below suggestions to offer a roadmap for enabling the use of analysis, site optimization and tracking technologies by government agencies. Personalizing site content for users who wish to have a setting remembered, enabling long term shopping carts and capturing analytics information over time to improving site usage […]
FPF's Reply Comments to the Federal Websites Cookie Policy
The Future of Privacy Forum is providing the below suggestions to offer a roadmap for enabling the use of analysis, site optimization and tracking technologies by government agencies. Personalizing site content for users who wish to have a setting remembered, enabling long term shopping carts and capturing analytics information over time to improving site usage […]
Does Microsoft + Yahoo = A Privacy Arms Race Among Web Giants?
Does Microsoft + Yahoo = A Privacy Arms Race Among Web Giants? New York Times By Riva Richmond July 31, 2009 When Internet giants team up, civil-liberties advocates tend to worry that their consolidated power will end up hurting the privacy of average users. An agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo to work together on Web […]
Search Privacy and the Microsoft-Yahoo! Agreement
As we have followed the rumors of a Microsoft-Yahoo deal over the last few months, the area we were most concerned about was the future of Yahoo’s leading search data retention policy. We have repeatedly praised Yahoo for implementing a data retention policy that seeks to anonymize search queries after 3 months and we have […]
New White House Policy on Cookies On the Way
Look out today for a Federal Register request for comment and a post at the White House Open Government site about ways for revising the current prohibition on persistent cookies. The goal is to continue to protect the privacy of people who visit Federal Government websites while at the same time making these websites more […]