Ryan Singel writes: Just a year ago, the discussion about whether websites could be prevented from tracking visitors was an arcane topic limited to hard-core privacy activists — and dismissed by many as fundamentally impossible: The equivalent of the Do Not Call list, the naysayers argued, would technically lead to more tracking. But now Do…
Category: Business
How to Mine Customer Data the Right Way
Robert Vamosi writes: You have to run a business, and that requires understanding what interests your customers. But you also want to do the right thing and protect your customers’ privacy. How do you walk that line when trying to mine information from the Web? Some data-mining shortcuts, such as scraping data off of social…
Google deceiving Android users on location sharing
Alexander Hanff writes: Last summer I raised an issue with Google regarding location sharing on Android devices. Google give consumers the option of disabling location sharing on their new Android device during initial device setup (the first time you turn the device on) and the wording Google uses leads consumers to believe that is an…
Etsy.com backpedals, but how much goodwill of their members might they have lost? (updated)
After getting somewhat roundly slammed and thrashed by the media and the blogosphere over the past 24 hours, Etsy.com has backpedalled and apologized for its recent change in privacy practices. I’d say that it was in response to its members’ complaints in their forums, but the reality is that there were tons of complaints and…