Ryan Calo writes: The intuition that privacy and innovation are somehow opposed is surprisingly common. It is true that overzealous or reactionary appeals to privacy can cut off interesting ventures. (For instance, some believe Steamtunnels would have evolved into a social network in 1999 were it not shut down by the Stanford University due to privacy…
Category: Business
What the US government can do to encourage Do Not Track
Chris Soghoian writes: Over the past few months, there has been a lot of discussion about Do Not Track. Although both the FTC and Commerce Department have recently issued privacy reports that mentioned Do Not Track, neither agency has the authority under existing law to make Do Not Track a reality. Either the industry can…
Privacy Protection Pricelists: $10 to Delete Your Facebook Account; Message and Photo Encryption Free
Kashmir Hill writes: There are a number of companies that hope to make a business out of protecting consumers’ online reputations. It’s an uphill climb for these companies, I think. “Reputation” doesn’t tend to show its real value until it’s already been diminished. Nonetheless, these companies hope that, as more of our lives move online,…
Firefox Do-Not-Track Feature Seen as Toothless
Not everyone is dancing in the streets over Mozilla’s new Do Not Track feature. Mike Martin of TechNewsWorld reports from the you-can’t-please-everyone dept: Like the Incredibles, facing down a nefarious, subterranean villain called “the Underminer” at the end of their debut movie, Mozilla is facing down data miners by giving Firefox users a new, albeit…