Facebook’s privacy woes are anything but over. On Wednesday, nine privacy groups requested the FTC to investigate Facebook’s user tracking practices. From BGR:
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and seven other privacy groups have contacted the U.S. Federal Trade Commission asking it to investigate Facebook for “secretly tracking users after they logged off of Facebook’s webpage.”
Additional information was found via AP.
It appears Facebook’s privacy concerns aren’t over as two U.S. lawmakers are asking the FTC to investigate them for their tracking practices. Although Facebook has updated their logout logic to remove the tracking cookie, it appears the issue still caught the government’s attention. From the ComputerWorld article:
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) wrote an open letter Wednesday urging FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz to look into Facebook’s tracking of its users even after they log out of the site.
[…]
“As Co-Chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, we believe that tracking user behavior without their consent or knowledge raises serious privacy concerns,” wrote Markey and Barton. “When users log out of Facebook, they are under the expectation that Facebook is no longer monitoring their activities. We believe this impression should be the reality.”
Considering that cookies have been used for years to track users’ browsing habits, I wonder why this specific case has caught the government’s attention.
Today Google announced real-time stats support for Google Analytics users. From the post:
Today we’re very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens.
The new feature works exclusively in the new interface, and has only been enabled for a subset of the user-base. If you would like to have it enabled on your account, please visit https://services.google.com/fb/forms/realtimeanalytics/
Google Analytics Realtime Example
According to an article on TheTelecomBlog, Microsoft has patented a technology titled ‘Legal Intercept’ that would allow them to eavesdrop on VoIP conversations. From the article:
The technology would allow Microsoft to silently record communications on VoIP networks such as Skype. While some believe it’s no reason to panic, others believe it gives Microsoft or government officials a license to secretly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls while they are doing the unmentionable.
Although the patent was filed before Microsoft acquired Skype, it does explicitly name them in an example.
As for use cases:
Microsoft says that ‘Legal Intercept’ can be used by the US government or “one of its agencies”. If further mentions that this technology would require obtaining “appropriate legal permission”, which might not be that difficult for a government to acquire.
I wasn’t shocked by who may use the technology, but I am concerned if this technology is circumvented for illegal or nefarious purposes.
On Sunday I covered how Verizon was siding with Samsung in their IP battle with Apple, and now it appears T-Mobile has also decided to weigh in on the issue. Today, T-Mobile filed an amicus brief opposing the Samsung Galaxy ban. From their statement:
While T-Mobile respects intellectual property rights and believes that owners of intellectual property deserve the right to present their arguments and evidence of infringement in court, a preliminary injunction is a drastic and extraordinary measure, and the courts should pay particular attention to its public consequences
T-Mobile may soon be the only major U.S. mobile carrier to not offer the iPhone, with rumors that Sprint will soon offer the top-selling device. Couple this with the fact that 90% of the smartphones T-Mobile sold in 2011 run Android and you can start to see why they too are concerned over the ban.
Cole Brodman, Chief Marketing Officer for T-Mobile USA has made it apparent that they do not know when they may carry the iPhone. From GigaOm:
“We’d love to have the iPhone whenever Apple makes that available,” he said, adding that the ball is in Apple’s court. “We are waiting for that phone call.”
I always thought a major selling point of Android was the diversity offered from multiple handset makers. But if Apple wins their case against Samsung, this could cause problems for future Android phones before they make it to market. Considering T-Mobile relies almost exclusively on the Android smartphone platform, this precedent could spell problems for them going forward.
