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21 Jan 2010

It’s not just Google and Facebook that are under scrutiny from privacy watchdogs.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), a consumer advocacy group based in Ottawa, has asked the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate alleged violations of Canadian privacy law by popular teen social networking site, Nexopia.

PIAC’s complaint identified six Nexopia privacy practices it says violate the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. In particular, PIAC alleges that Nexopia fails to obtain proper consent to release its users’ profiles and personal information to the public via the Internet.
John-Lawford
"Social networking is massively popular with children and teens," said John Lawford, counsel for PIAC.

"Kids can use social networking positively to socialize with their friends and express themselves in different ways in different communities. But young users often post personal details about themselves online without realizing that these details are available beyond Nexopia to the public Internet."

Lawford notes that Nexopia also provides an advanced search function to search for members. "Nexopia’s member search engine can be used by everyone with an Internet connection and is a worrisome tool: it permits a very fine-grained search of Nexopia members. This tool does not respect youth privacy."

Nexopia has more than 1.4 million registered users, with more joining every day. Nexopia is being used by approximately 70% of teenagers and young adults in western Canada.

"Nexopia’s default settings are set to share information with the whole world. We believe that many Nexopia users, especially young people, don’t appreciate the extent to which their personal information is being shared beyond their circle of friends," said Janet Lo, co-counsel for PIAC on the complaint.

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Tags: Bing, Canada, canadian privacy law, consumer advocacy group, information, Janet Lo, John Lawford, member search engine, Nexopia, Ottawa, PIAC, privacy, public interest advocacy, public interest advocacy centre, quot, western Canada

More Reporters Using Facebook And Twitter For Story Research

In: web resources

21 Jan 2010

The majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories, according to a new survey by Cision and George Washington University.

Among the journalists surveyed, 89 percent said they turn to blogs for story research, 65 percent to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52 percent to microblogging services such as Twitter. In addition, 61 percent use Wikipedia.

While the results indicate the fast growth of social media as a well-used source of information for mainstream journalists, the survey made it clear reporters and editors are highly aware of the need to verify information they get from social media. Eighty-four percent said social media sources were "slightly less" or "much less" reliable than traditional media, with 49 percent saying social media suffers from "lack of fact checking, verification and reporting standards."

"Mainstream media have clearly hit a tipping point in their reliance on social media for their research and reporting," said Heidi Sullivan, Vice President of Research for Cision.

Social-media-usage "However, it’s also clear that while social media is supplementing the research done by journalists, it is not replacing editors’ and reporters’ reliance on primary sources, fact-checking and other traditional best practices in journalism."

The survey also found, most journalists turn to public relations people for assistance in their primary research. Editors and reporters said they rely on PR people for "interviews and access to sources and experts" (44%), "answers to questions and targeted information" (23%), and "perspective, information in context, and background information" (17%).

"Social media provides a wealth of new information for journalists, but getting the story right is just as important as ever," said Don Bates, founding director of the GWU Strategic Public Relations program, and writing/media relations instructor.

"As PR professionals increasingly utilize social media as a means of communicating, they have a bigger responsibility than ever to ensure the information they provide journalists is accurate and timely, provide access to the primary sources who can verify the facts, and be knowledgeable enough to provide accurate background and context."

Related Articles:

> Social Media Will Not Replace Search

> People 18-24 Would Rather Give Up Social Networks Than Email

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Tags: Don Bates, facebook, george washington university, Heidi Sullivan, information, mainstream journalists, nbsp, percent, quot, research, strategic public relations, Than Email

Google Not Reading Your Personal Email Cause It’s Boring; Hard To Advertise Against

In: web resources

21 Jan 2010

Screen shot 2010-01-20 at 3.26.54 PM Google has a funny little blog post today on the Gmail Blog. Apparently, they’ve decided to change the way they’re serving advertisements in Gmail. Why? They say it’s in the name of serving ads that are more relevant to users. But really, it’s fairly obvious that it’s about serving ads that will bring in more money.

In the example they give, Google says that if you previously read an email confirming a hotel in Chicago, and were served an ad about flights to Chicago in Gmail, you might see that same ad when you’re reading an email wishing you a happy birthday. The thought is that there wouldn’t be a good ad to serve you related to this birthday message. That’s probably not true — instead, it’s probably an ad with a much lower click rate (and CPC rate) that makes Google less money.

Here’s something else Google notes that’s interesting:

To show these ads, our systems don’t need to store any extra information — Gmail just picks a different recent email to match. The process is entirely automated: no humans are involved in selecting ads, and no email or personal information is shared with advertisers.

Since the beginning of Gmail and its AdSense contextual ads, there has been much concern that Google was reading all of your email to serve up the best ads. Google employees aren’t reading them, but their bots are, and now they’re going to start reading some older ones that you’re not even looking at as well, apparently.

Now, how exactly reading another unrelated email will serve up a more contextually relevant ad, I’m not sure. Actually, I am. In this Google equation, “relevancy” simply means “ad more likely to make us money.”

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