Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

Here’s a paper I wrote for my IT Law course. Hopefully you find it useful. It deals with DRM and the impact it’s had on consumers and businesses in recent years, particularly the digital revolution.

Abstract:

Recent years have sparked worldwide debate on technologies making copyrighted material freely distributable between users of certain networks, and circumventing copyright protection technologies in almost all consumer devices and applications. The government has stepped in to attempt protecting the companies who own copyrighted material at the expense of innocent consumers, whose rights have become limited because of the new regulations proposed or passed by governments and businesses alike. One major technology backed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is Digital Rights Management. This paper will present the ethical, moral, and financial issues that this technology has had on consumers and businesses alike.

Download PDF

Nowadays companies have a lot of information about their consumers and it’s important that they protect it. But sometimes, they decide that they can use an extra buck by selling your confidential information to the highest bidder. 

Turns out that Verizon has been sending its customers a notice encrypted with legal-lingo and beneath it all is a notice that unless customers opt out, their info will be shared with ’affiliates, agents and parent companies’. The sellable goods include ’services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info,’ in other words – anything they have on you.

Great news for the unsuspecting victims (err… customers), but it gets even better – e-bill subscribers won’t even get the notice unless they go to their messages and click on the link that says “Not Available”. Great.

Companies selling your info is nothing new, but you have to give credit to Verizon – they openly (well, through a confusing notice) admit to it. *applause*

Source: ReadWriteWeb.

Well here we go again – the government is trying to protect consumer’s privacy and enforce net neutrality (which prohibits ISPs from collecting information about where and what you do on the net, except with a court order/warrant). Big Brother is not happy with this, as it prevents them from restricting their users and having complete control over what they do on the net. 

But that’s not all – one company in particular, VideoTron, told the CRTC that it ’could be beneficial not only to users of Internet services but to society in general.’ I just don’t see the connection between throttling my connection speed (for which I have paid for), keeping track of everything I click on the net, turning off my connection if I have a virus sent to me, and beneficial. But apperantly, Videotron has it all figured out – they claim it stops viruses and spam, amongst other threats. What would we do without our trusty ISP?

Read more here.

Facebook opens up with new TOS

Facebook has been under attack of accusations that it sells information out to third parties ever since it got popular. It seems that now the pressure is more than ever, especially with the recent change in TOS (Terms of Service) which sparked an Internet-wide debate.

In any case, Facebook is opening the doors to its parliament, and its users can vote on the new changes for the next 30 days or so. This is right after the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) announced it is ready to file a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission over the new changes in the TOS, which by the way, were unnoticed and unannounced for a little while.

No matter what the new TOS brings, I wouldn’t trust Facebook with my information. As far as I am concerned, it sells all of it to the highest bidder. 3rd parties can use it in a multitode of ways – they link your email, phone, name, and other contact information to your friends, pictures, surfing habits, personal preferences (what music you like, what is your favorite movie, to what activities you enjoy), and the school and job you have. That’s a lot of information, more than most other places on the web. Not to mention that once you enter it in there, it’s forever kept in your account, which can not be erased – only disabled.

To read more details on the story, visit PCWorld.