Recent kerfuffles on the online privacy scene owing to a change in Google’s “privacy” policies reminded me of several such that have surfaced over the past few months. One has to do with a utility embedded in many smart phones that allows your carrier to track your usage of the various services to which you are subscribed. This utility is …
The Value of Computer-based Social Networks–Or Not
Technology as a means of establishing and facilitating communication between people has a long history. Let’s skip right to more modern means, beginning with the telegraph, move through the years to the telephone and on to fax, followed by the early days of computer-network mediated message handling via nascent email and early chat tools. As we get closer to today’s …
Who Owns Your Information?
If you are a denizen of the various social networking sites, I hope you are aware of the battles that are raging with respect to “privacy” settings. Some locations, such as Facebook, have as an overarching philosophy that all information you post should be available to everyone by default, and that it is your responsibility as a user of the …