Sunday, October 07, 2012

This time, for the author's amusement. Next time for profit?
There is a new hoax making its way around Facebook, and there is a good chance you have already seen it. The post implores Facebook users to repost it by midnight to avoid Facebook’s new monthly charge. According to the post, Facebook has implemented a new, three-tier pricing structure that will go into effect tomorrow (the date is not relevant, it says tomorrow no matter when it’s posted). The proposed prices range from $9.99 a month for gold to $3.99 a month for bronze. The post makes no mention of what features users supposedly get for these tiers.


Does the Fourth Amendment protect communications or people?
Article: Facebook and Interpersonal Privacy: Why the Third Party Doctrine Should Not Apply [DRAFT]
October 6, 2012 by Dissent
Monu Singh Bedi of DePaul University College of Law has uploaded a draft version of an upcoming issue of Boston College Law Review. Here’s the abstract:
Do communications over social networking sites such as Facebook merit Fourth Amendment protection? The Supreme Court has not directly answered this question and lower courts are not in agreement. The hurdle is the Third Party Doctrine, which states that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy to any communication she voluntarily discloses to a person or entity. All internet communications (e.g. status updates, photos, emails) are stored on third party servers or internet service providers (ISPs) and thus would seemingly lose Fourth Amendment protection, allowing the government to obtain the information from the server without first securing a warrant supported by probable cause. Numerous scholars, have weighed in on the issue — analyzing the nature of the communication or the entity to which the information is disclosed — in an effort to show that these communications continue to merit Fourth Amendment protection despite this disclosure. These scholars have understandably focused on internet communications qua communications but, in doing so, have largely ignored the overall effect of communications over social networking sites such as Facebook.
This article steps outside traditional Fourth Amendment scholarship and relies on the concept of interpersonal privacy rights, embodied by substantive due process, equal protection, and First Amendment principles, as way to protect communications over social networking platforms such as Facebook from unwarranted government intrusion. This type of privacy has a history apart from the Fourth Amendment and focuses on the value of interpersonal relationships and the bonds therein. This article interprets the relevant cases collectively and broadly and makes the argument that the concept of interpersonal privacy should apply to social networking relationships over the internet when assessing whether the constituent communication merits privacy protection. Social scientists have recognized that these relationships share the same qualitative structure and can be just as “real” as their face-to-face counterparts. This analysis provides a new way to apply the reasonable expectation of privacy test under the Fourth Amendment — one that avoids the common pitfalls associated with the Third Party Doctrine.
You can download the draft paper from SSRN.


Fingers in dikes, yes. Fingerprints on passports, no!
Biometric passport stands trial in European Courts
October 6, 2012 by Dissent
An EU reader sends in this comment/update on the legal battle over biometric passports:
The legality of the biometric passport is being questioned by European courts.
At the end of September, the Dutch highest administrative appeal court joined the recent German request for a preliminary ruling from the EU Court of Justice.
EU Law Radar highlights the first case of the German lawyer Michael Schwarz, who refused to have his fingerprints scanned when applying for a new passport.
In The Netherlands, several other cases have now led to similar court questions regarding the proportionality of the biometric passport (and possible future function creep).
An overview of the Dutch fight against fingerprints and IDbases can be found here (towards the bottom).
Thanks to this reader for keeping us apprised. PogoWasRight.org welcomes submissions on privacy law developments around the world. If you would like to submit something, please contact me via e-mail. This site generally does not include material designed to promote commercial services, however.
Given the broadly acknowledged high failure rates (up to 25%) in the Netherlands, the collection of fingerscans could for this reason alone be regarded as highly unnecessary in a democratic society and therefore illegal.
Nevertheless answers from the Luxemburg based EU Court of Justice regarding the proportionality of biometrics will take up to 1,5 years.
another player in this field: the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Strasburg. He was asked to use his powers based on article 52 ECHR to investigate the collection of biometrics for ID documents in all ECHR countries involved.
When will Secretary General Mr. Jagland do his legal duty? URL:


Why do I have this creepy feeling that Facebook has manuvered the Court into confirming that what they will do going forward is legal and future class actions are unlikely to win... Are their lawyers that good?
Revised proposed settlement in Facebook “Sponsored Stories” lawsuit
October 6, 2012 by Dissent
Back in August, I noted that a judge had rejected a proposed settlement in Fraley v. Facebook, a lawsuit over “sponsored stories.” Eric Goldman points us to a copy of the amended settlement proposal, now available online. Here are some of the terms of the amended proposal:
1. Facebook will revise its Terms of Use to include language substantially as follows:
About Advertisements and Other Commercial Content Served or Enhanced by Facebook
Our goal is to deliver advertising and other commercial or sponsored content, such as Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories, that is valuable to our users and advertisers. In order to help us do that, you agree to the following:
You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.
If you are under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, you represent that at least one of your parents or legal guardians has also agreed to the terms of this section (and the use of your name, profile picture, content, and information) on your behalf.
2. Facebook will create an easily accessible mechanism that enables users to view, on a going-forward basis, the subset of their interactions and other content on Facebook that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories (if any). Facebook will further engineer settings to enable users, upon viewing the interactions and other content that are being displayed in Sponsored Stories, to control which of these interactions and other content are eligible to appear in additional Sponsored Stories. Without limiting the foregoing, but for the sake of clarity, these settings will include the ability to enable users to prevent individual interactions and other content (or categories of interactions and other content) from appearing in additional Sponsored Stories.
3. Facebook will revise its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to provide that Facebook users under the age of eighteen (18), or under any other applicable age of majority, represent that their parent or legal guardian consents to the use of their name and likeness in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content. Facebook will encourage new users, upon or soon after joining Facebook, to include in their profile information about their family, including their parents and children. Where both a parent and a minor child are users and confirm their relationship, Facebook’s systems will record this confirmed parent/child relationship and utilize it as further described below:
Facebook will add an easily accessible link in the Family Safety Center (https://www.facebook.com/safety) to the tool it currently provides that enables parents to prevent the names and likenesses of their minor children from appearing alongside Facebook Ads (currently available at https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/328678960533614) and Facebook will extend this tool to enable parents to also prevent the names and likenesses of their minor children from appearing in Sponsored Stories. Facebook will also implement a method for enabling parents with a confirmed parental relationship with a minor user to utilize this tool through their own Facebook accounts, without obtaining access to their children’s accounts. Finally, Facebook will add a control in minor users’ profiles that enables each minor user to indicate that his or her parents are not Facebook users. Where a minor user indicates that his or her parents are not on Facebook, Facebook will make the minor ineligible to appear in Sponsored Stories until he or she reaches the age of 18, until the minor changes his or her setting to indicate that his or her parents are on Facebook, or until a confirmed parental relationship with the minor user is established.
There’s more, of course, and while I have some concerns about Facebook being able to know more about family connections, I do like the idea of them making minors ineligible for sponsored stories use if there is no parent on Facebook who can monitor the minor’s activity in that regard.
With respect to the $20,000,000 Settlement Fund, each authorized claimant might get a one-time cash payment equal to ten dollars ($10). It could be more, but if it works out to $5.00 or less per claimant, the court has the option to just order that portion of the monies in the fund go to cy pres recipients and not claimants. The plaintiffs in the case would each get no more than $12,500 as an Incentive Award.
I’m sure others will dissect and comment on the proposed settlement in additional detail. I do think this settlement does improve privacy controls and protections, although it’s a shame it takes class action lawsuits to achieve what many of us think Facebook should be doing voluntarily and from the git-go.


TSA has a plan! They will cover aircraft windshields with tin foil!
"Ars Technica has a story about a 52 year old man who was arrested and sentenced to three years in jail for shining a high powered green laser at a helicopter along with an interesting video showing how he was tracked down. The FBI says that laser strikes are becoming epidemic, saying that they expect to see reports of 3,700 of them this year."


Perspective
"A Harvard Business School study sponsored by the Interactive Advertising Bureau shows that the ad-supported Internet is responsible for 5.1 million jobs in the U.S. — two million direct and 3.1 million indirect. They report that the Internet accounted for 3.7% of 2011 GDP. The research, development and procurement that launched the Internet back in the 1970s and 1980s cost the US taxpayers $124.5 million at the time — not a bad investment!"


Tools & Techniques
If you need an easy way to save any online content to the cloud then you should check out Capture To Cloud. This Android app and browser extension for Chrome and Firefox, allows you to send any digital content straight to the cloud.
While its feature set can be replicated by note taking apps and web clipping plugins, Capture To Cloud’s greatest convenience is that it lets you send any content directly to your online storage in one click. Once the browser-addon is installed, just right-click any area of the page you want to save. You can save images, texts, links, complete webpages, or just the URLs.


I'm thinking of an App development class where all the programming is done on smartphones...
… Mobello is an open-source Javascript framework that allows you to create mobile apps in the simplest way possible. Developed for touch input, this app is optimized to let you have a native-like experience on the web, while also allowing you to create HTML5 mobile apps that you can submit to the App Store.
Mobello’s framework let you add more than 20 UI components for your app. The makers made sure that anyone can go in and extend its functionality to meet your app’s demands.
Mobello also has a companion desktop app called Mobello Studio, which allows to design an app from the ground up using the visual design editor. Think of it as a WYSIWYG interface for mobile apps. Other features include real-time editing, layout editing, and javascript debugging.

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