On September 7, 2011, Facebook changed its privacy policy, replacing the policy that was updated on December 22, 2010. What are the changes all about and what are their privacy implications?
What is Facebook’s New Privacy Policy All About? More Complexity, More Intransparent Data Storage, Continued Internet Prosumer Commodification, Ideological Pseudo-Participation, and a Reaction to the Privacy Complaints Filed by “Europe versus Facebook”.
christian fuchs, September 17th 2011
The Judicial Art of Living in the German Surveillance Society: German Constitutional Court Declares Data Retention as Unconstitutional
The German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has declared the retention of telecommunication connection data by service providers and the access of law enforcement to these data as unconstitutional. It said in its judgment from March 2nd, 2010 that data retention is not proportionatley adequate and violates article 10, paragraph 1 of the German Basic Law.
christian fuchs, March 7th 2010
Google Buzz: Economic Surveillance – Buzz Off! The Problem of Online Surveillance and the Need for an Alternative Internet
Google Buzz is part of Google’s empire of economic surveillance. It gathers information about user behaviour and user interests in order to store, assess, and sell this data to advertising clients. Google’s online product advertising for Buzz says: “The first thing we all do when we find something interesting is share it. More and more of this kind of sharing takes place online. Google Buzz is a new way to share updates, photos, videos, and more”.
Do people really want to share vast amounts of private data and location data not only with their friends, but also with Google? Can Google be considered as a friend of all humans, or doesn’t it rather accumulate power that can also cause great harm to humans? Do people really always want to tell others where they currently are? Are people really interested in sharing their location data not only with selected friends, but also with Google?
christian fuchs, February 14th 2010
Google Buzz and Economic Surveillance
I find interesting about the NY Times article and the reactions of some users to Google Buzz that they primarily stress the danger that China, Iran, etc could use Buzz for engaging in the (political) surveillance of political oppositionists and that they label such endeavaours totalitarian, while at the same time they do not provide a critique of the economic surveillance machine constituted by Google’s expanding services, its collection, storage, analysis, and commodification of personal data, and its market dominance.
christian fuchs, February 13th 2010