timwhitlock.info

Then this morning (when checking out ‘If this then that‘) I saw this:

So, in a rare moment of patriotism, I added this to the TwitBlock footer:

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I recently came across this research into risk reduction strategies for using Facebook – particularly by teenagers. The main article talks about “Super-Logoff“, but it was a comment below the article that educated me about “Whitewalling“.

I love this. The simple idea that yesterday’s wall posts are yesterday’s news. Not only may they be irrelevant, but once forgotten who knows how they may come back to bite you? They’re still there, discoverable by other users and of course by the API.

These insights challenge my assumption that the next generation of adults won’t care about privacy. Teenagers may not have quite the same concerns as I do about these issues, but it’s fascinating to see how a website (designed by adults) leaves them to solve their own problems their own way.

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I recently saw this paper: “Facebook Tracks and Traces Everyone: Like This!”
(download the PDF)

Short version

Zuckerberg's 'open' and 'connected' world

Every time you merely visit a site that displays a Like button, data is sent to Facebook which includes the address of the site you are visiting. Assuming you’ve also logged into Facebook, they have all the information they would need to associate these external page views with your Facebook identity.

What are they actually doing with this data? Possibly nothing, but I don’t see any statement saying “Don’t worry, we don’t store web page URLs you view, even though we could“. The usual guff about ‘anonymized’ data and cookies being required for functionality doesn’t quite cut it with me. This is Big Brother stuff, and they need to be crystal clear about what they could do and what they are doing. Read more…

This New Year’s eve I thought I might blog some predictions for the coming year, (social purchasing, app stores, yada yada), but I decided that wasn’t stupid enough, so at risk of sounding like a deranged conspiracy theorist,  here’s my outlook for 2013 instead. Sweet dreams, and happy 2011 everyone! Read more…

My geek friends are up in arms about Yahoo! shutting down Del.icio.us.

Apparently it falls into the category of “underperforming or off-strategy” products. The echo chambers are ablaze with calls to save it, or open the source code. Of course, my non-geek friends ask “What’s Delicious?” – and there’s the rub.

I’m not qualified to examine Yahoo!’s original business strategy for Del.icio.us, but one thing is pretty clear to me — the masses don’t use bookmarks; not even the browser toolbar kind, let alone a Cloud solution – sorry, I mean Web-based solution.

Remember this? (view comments oldest first). Meet the masses.

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