Entries Tagged 'Student Online Reputation' ↓

In today’s Quick Hits, we learn what privacy harm means, how Paris police feel about Google Street View, and the meaning behind the heavily encoded texting language of teens.

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Free iPad Scams Hit Facebook and Twitter

Twitter and Facebook have both become inundated in recent weeks by scammers promising free iPads to users. Once a scammer gains access to a user’s social media account, they send out messages to user’s friends containing a link to better-gifts.net. According to Reuters, “that Web site asks for personal information, and then directs the user to a variety of promotional offers from legitimate companies such as Netfilx, the Doubleday Book Club, and Columbia House DVD.Online marketing programs pay cash for Web traffic, and hackers have found that by phishing victims and then using that information to break into legitimate Twitter and Facebook accounts, they can earn money.”

NYT Tech Talk Podcast: Fighting Over the Facebook Movie

In this week’s New York Times Tech Talk Podcast, part of the show focuses on The Social Network, the allegedly fictionalized upcoming movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the origins of Facebook. The show specifically touches on Facebook’s vehement disagreements with the producers of the film over its subject matter and curious interpretation of Facebook’s early history.

Internet Expert Ryan Calo Explains “Privacy Harm”

In a Q&A for the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Calo, senior research fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University Law School, attempts to define “Privacy Harm,” or what constitutes a harmful invasion of privacy versus something that is merely distasteful. In his thoughtful responses, Calo mentions subjective privacy harm versus objective privacy harm and the difference between a “privacy violation” and a “privacy harm.”

Google Street View Car Stopped and Searched in France

Google is operating Street View cars in France again, but not without a healthy bit of scrutiny. From BusinessWeek: “A car used by Google Inc. to collect data for its Street View mapping service was stopped and searched yesterday near Paris, less than a week after France’s privacy regulator criticized the company.The inspection was a result of Google resuming photographing French streets before officials decided whether the company complied with orders to limit Street View’s data collection, said Yann Padova, secretary general of the National Commission for Computing and Civil Liberties.”

Understanding Teen Texting

Kids and teens go to great lengths to hide their digital conversations from their parents. This article from CNN discusses some of the common Internet lingo that teens use when texting or chatting with friends and offers a handful of resources for parents to learn more about this ever-evolving and complex shorthand web language.

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about cyberbullying prevention, a Foursquare founder’s thoughts on Facebook Places, and why a newly proposed German privacy law will be impossible to enforce.

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Eric Zorn: Teens Must Learn to be Their Own Internet Monitors

In a column for the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn offers parenting advice about monitoring the Internet. In addition to his advice, however, Zorn also remarks that, with so much access, “even moderately clever teens can outwit parents bent on surveillance.” To this end, Zorn writes that “teens must learn to be their own Internet monitors” and understand the importance of practicing strong and proactive online reputation management.

Foursquare Co-Founder Calls Facebook Places “Boring”

With Facebook Places set to take over the world of location-based social networking, competitors are beginning to speak out. In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley said, ““I have now had a chance to play around with Facebook Places and it’s not that great or interesting. It’s a pretty boring service, with barely any incentives for users to keep coming back and telling their friends where they are.” If even a fraction of Facebook’s more than 500 million users try out Facebook Places, it will be a major blow to other geo-location social media services.

AOL Launches Paid Child Safety Service

AOL recently launched a new child safety service called Safe Social. Safe Social employs monitoring technology to alert parents about a child’s actions online. The effort is AOL’s first branded paid consumer service in years. According to TechCrunch, AOL is licensing technology from the company SocialShield in order to offer Safe Social to customers.

Can Schools Search Cell Phones to Stop Cyberbullying?

How far should schools be allowed to go in their efforts to fight cyberbullying? That’s the question at hand in Oak Harbor, Washington where a new anti-bullying plan would give school administrators the ability to search through students’ cellphones if they are suspected of using them to “harass others through e-mails, text messages or photos.” Administrators compare searching a cell phone to searching a school locker, but some parents believe the plan goes too far.

Germany Proposes Law that Prohibits Cybersnooping

What if hiring managers were legally prohibited from using the Internet to screen candidates? That may soon happen in Germany where “Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has drafted a new law on data privacy that, among other things, will clamp down on the information companies can legally collect on employees from social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace.” Germany is one of the most privacy-conscious countries in the world, but it seems that this law would be next to impossible to enforce.

In today’s Quick Hits, we look into what online marketing experts are saying Facebook Places, why Cameron Diaz is the most dangerous celebrity online, who is being targeted in the latest Facebook scam, and what a new study reveals about students who actively use the social network.

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Google’s rumored social networking website, why employee social media use might not be the best thing for businesses, and how identity thieves are ruining kids’ credit scores before they’re even old enough to have a credit card.

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British Survey: Social Media Use May Cause £14 Billion Loss in Productivity

According to a survey of 1,000 British employees by MyJobGroup, “two million people – or six per cent of Britain’s 34 million-strong workforce – admitted wasting more than an hour every day adding friends, uploading pictures and videos and tweeting.” This time spent on social media websites could be causing productivity losses of “£14 billion a year.” Besides lost productivity, unmonitored employee social media use could lead to company secrets ending up on the web. For these reasons, it is important for companies to establish effective social media policies for employees.

Identity Thieves Target Kids’ Social Security Numbers

According to an AP report, identity thieves are now targeting children’s social security numbers to set up fraudulent accounts in other people’s names. The article states that, “Hundreds of online businesses are using computers to find dormant Social Security numbers — usually those assigned to children who don’t use them — then selling those numbers under another name to help people establish phony credit and run up huge debts they will never pay off.” In the Internet age, even children need to have control over their personal data. Parents need to take responsibility to ensure their kids’ identities are protected online.

College Students Compare and Contrast Facebook and Possible Google Social Network

In this article from ABC News, college students discuss what they do and don’t like about Facebook. The article then explores how Google’s long-rumored social networking website could be a viable competitor to Facebook. Specifically, the students in the article cited Google’s ability to integrate products like GMail or YouTube directly into its social network as strong reasons why they might leave Facebook.

Failure of Google Wave Could Help Google Me

Speaking of Google’s social networking website, this article from ComputerWorld discusses how the demise of Google Wave (the project officially shut down yesterday) may actually help Google Me. Google is a company that learns from its mistakes. With Wave, Google didn’t do enough to explain why the product was useful or make it an essential web experience. Google’s failures on that count will help it as it develops and markets Google Me.

Valleywag Stalks Mark Zuckerberg to Make Point About Privacy

The Gawker-run Silicon Valley gossip website Valleywag has begun a new feature that intends to show Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg what it’s like to lose one’s privacy online. The site has hired a paparazzi photographer to follow Zuckerberg around during the day and publish the photos online. Thus far, they haven’t found anything interesting, other than the fact that Zuckerberg drives an Acura even though he’s worth 4an estimated four billion dollars. Though ValleyWag is pushing the limits of ethical journalism with this series, it’s an interesting counter point to Zuckerberg’s own statement that the “age of privacy is over.”

In today’s Quick Hits, we explore some new research on social networking habits, ponder changes to COPPA, and discuss what Google may have in store with its Facebook competitor.

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Facebook’s New Member Numbers Dive in June

Inside Facebook has some very interesting data that shows Facebook’s recent privacy slip-ups may have actually cost the website new users. According to the research, the number of US Facebook users climbed by only 320,800 in June, whereas it grew by 7.8 million users in May. Inside Facebook concedes that the big drop-off may be an anomaly, but they also note that the age groups that saw the biggest drops would be among those most aware of media coverage of Facebook’s privacy problems.

Facebook Movie Won’t be Advertised on Facebook

Speaking of Facebook problems, Mark Zuckerberg has a big one coming up in the form of the movie “The Social Network” a dramatized version of Facebook’s inception. Many pundits who have read the script believe the movie could draw further negative attention toward Facebook, even if it little of the plot is true. At least Zuck doesn’t have to worry about people promoting the movie on his own website, though. According to Sony SVP Steve Elzer, “Facebook’s advertising guidelines don’t allow ads to reference the company unless Facebook has cooperated with the object of the ad,” and I doubt Facebook will cooperate.

New Research Shows Contradictions in Facebook Use Among Young Women

New research from Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research reveals a number of interesting facts about the way young women use social networking websites. According to the study, 53 percent of young women post details of their personal problems on Facebook, while a seemingly contradictory 54 percent of women aged 18 to 24 don’t trust Facebook with their information. An even more telling and contradictory finding is that “some 42 percent of women aged 18 to 34 seem to think it’s just fine to post pictures of themselves in a state of ‘visible intoxication’, but 63 percent use Facebook for networking and their careers.”

The research is interesting because it reveals how social network users are still figuring out exactly what is and is not appropriate to share on the web even after more than six years of being online.

The Benefits of Social Networking for Doctors

An article in USA Today weighs the merits of doctors joining social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter for personal branding and patient outreach. One doctor, Kevin Pho who runs the popular website KevinMD.com makes the point that “doctors who are not active online risk being marginalized.”

Google Social Media Presentation Explores the Problem with “Friends”

Since the rumor broke that Google is planning to create its own social network “Google Me,” tech writers have been looking everywhere for information on how Google plans to outdo Facebook. This article from the Wall Street Journal Digits blog discusses a recent social networking presentation from Google that is making the rounds online. The presentation focused on how social networking users rarely have hundreds of personal friends, but rather groups of friends and then acquaintances. Google claims the presentation isn’t a roadmap for things to come, only an analysis of current social media trends.

FTC Weighs Changes to COPPA

The Federal Trade Commission is currently taking a new look at the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and has extended the deadline for public comments on the law through July 12th. COPPA was last examined in 2005, but has not changed since it was passed in 1998. With the growth of social networking and other major Internet developments, however, it seems like the perfect time to make sure the law fits with the times.

UK Information Commissioner Releases Code of Practice for Data Collection

In the UK, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has released a code of practice for Internet companies seeking to collect user data online. Graham released the code as an e-book through the Information Commissioner’s Office. The e-book “outlines advice for businesses, departments, and charities who collect information that can identify an individual.”