Privacy and Security Bits and Bytes
This has been a big week for privacy.
Tuesday - An article in The New York Times by Charles Duhigg detailed just how much information companies collect and how they utilize predictive analytics to figure out what people want almost before they know they want it. (Registration may be required). How much of this is really news to privacy wonks .....
Wednesday -- Three dozen state attorneys general sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, demanding that he meet with them regarding the company's proposed privacy changes, scheduled to take effect March 1. The courtesy of a reply has been requested by February 29th.
Thursday -- The White House released its long-awaited "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights".
Friday -- A federal judge has dismissed the Electronic Privacy Information Center's lawsuit against Google over those pesky new privacy policies. Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and RIM have reached an agreement with the California Attorney General's office designed to have the companies produce forms of privacy statements for application developers before users download those apps. Under the agreement, noncompliance with a stated privacy policy will be enforced under California consumer protection laws. And, finally, a new Pew study finds that more and more people are "unfriending" and trimming down social networks --- for privacy reasons.
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