The open marketplace seems to exacerbate the situation, with “people search” sites on one side hawking the idea of finding old friends and classmates, while privacy protectors sell you the chance to delete your data. What we don’t have is a standard privacy policy that actually protects the data you give out to so many companies and social networking sites.
Northwestern University psychologist comes under fire for research on transgender women and is hounded online by critics.
For longtime users, the influx of grownups means that information once intended for a circle of fellow students is now available for anyone to see. That has introduced a new social conundrum: deciding whose invites should be accepted -- and how much of your profile they should be able to see.
"You can't really unfriend your mom," says Hillary Woolley, a junior at the University of California at Davis. "So I've been upping my privacy settings."
MySpace.com has found and deleted profiles of 29,000 convicted sex offenders, more than four times the initial 7,000 profiles they claimed in May. The numbers were discovered after MySpace turned over info detailing the offenders they had removed from the service. MySpace turned over the records after states filed a formal legal request.
Sophos created a profile for a fake Facebook user named Freddi Staur (that’s “ID Fraudster,” anagrammed) and sent friend requests to 200 other randomly chosen Facebookers. In the end, 87 people made Freddi a friend, and nearly all of them shared some personal information — like their e-mail addresses or dates of birth — with the stranger.
Online predators are a smaller risk than the public is led to believe by the media and by law enforcement officials.
Jen Wagner, said her daughter was just like millions of other young people who thought that just because their Facebook or MySpace page was set to "private," their photos would remain that way.
"They don't realize how many people can eventually see these photos," she said.
And more on privacy in general in article
SAN FRANCISCO On the last day of June, the big topic among young women on the MySpace page for the Victoria's Secret Pink brand were the magazine coupons for free Pink flip-flops that could be found in Cosmo and Seventeen.
Every month 800,000 young people in the US enter the teen age bracket and join a constantly changing teen population numbering 33.9 million, the largest teen group ever. Of that group, 83% are online. And they have tons of cash, lots of information, and some pretty bold ambitions. The new American Dream? It includes a huge house AND Angelina Jolie virtues. Probably before age 30 if possible...
Following yesterday's post about a flaw in Facebook's privacy settings that would let people using Facebook's advanced search options find personal details about persons who had set their profiles to friends only, Facebook quickly fixed their search tool to eliminate that possibility and today its chief privacy officer Chris Kelly spoke with THREAT LEVEL about Facebook's approach to privacy.
RSS for user "trustteam: privacy"
The open marketplace seems to exacerbate the situation, with “people search” sites on one side hawking the idea of finding old friends and classmates, while privacy protectors sell you the chance to delete your data. What we don’t have is a standard privacy policy that actually protects the data you give out to so many companies and social networking sites.
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