CDT

7/9/2010 Author:  Cyrus Nemati Internet Openness & Standards Technical Standards

The mobile device market over the past few years has been largely defined by mobile operating system-specific apps. Want to see a video of an extremely happy goose? Load up your Youtube app, unique to your specific device. Want to browse some recipes? Download a unique app for your device for your favorite cooking site. How about some shopping? There are apps galore for online retailers!

 

This isn't how the Internet works on our computers. Imagine loading up the Amazon.com application on your home computer every time you want to browse Amazon.com. We're okay with doing this sort of thing on mobile phones because websites either have outdated mobile implementations (see WAP sites [Wireless Application Protocol]) or take too long too render fully. With mobile phones now responsible for enormous amounts of web traffic, it's strange that mobile sites haven't been updated, opting instead for OS-locked apps.

In defiance of the common apps-only mentality, a new version of Youtube mobile launched this week, employing HTML5 standards to craft a mobile site that isn't hideous and works on modern HTML5-compliant mobile browsers. Video on Youtube's mobile site is compressed in the 3GP format, a video standard for 3G mobile phones. The result is a streamlined interface perfect for a mobile phone - be it an iPhone, an Android, a Palm, or future devices like Windows Phone 7. With luck, this move will spur on other sites to re-invigorate their mobile web development.

 

7/1/2010 Author:  Cyrus Nemati Consumer Privacy More Issues in Consumer Privacy

Yesterday, CDT filed a complaint to the FTC against Spokeo, Inc., an online data aggregator. There are several services similar to Spokeo, so what makes them so bad, and how are they violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act?

What Spokeo Does

Spokeo is an online data aggregator. They skim information on thousands of people from social networks, not from actual reporting. The vast majority of the data aggregated on Spokeo.com can be found by searching within social networks or by using a search engine. By compiling this information, Spokeo provides the service of skipping tedious searching in order to find data on someone. Spokeo does not guarantee the "accuracy, legitimacy, or legality" of this information, nor should it - information gathered from a social network isn't necessarily real information.

Let's try an example search to show how accurate Spokeo is. I performed a search on my fiancée, and here's what resulted:

Well, the birthday is correct, but apparently, the 25-year-old Caucasian female I am dating is actually a rich, retired African-American male. At least it got the "no children" thing right. But wait:

He somehow has grandchildren without ever having had children. Where Spokeo received that bit of information, along with all the other interests (most of them are incorrect in this case), Spokeo does not tell. Somehow, though, they seem to think that nearly everyone enjoys browsing and purchasing from mall catalogs.

Aside from real-life examples, I've also found that Indiana Jones lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Although I would have voted for him, I don't remember him appearing on the presidential ballot. Bilbo Baggins is kicking around, though he is supposed to have passed to the Grey Havens in the Fourth Age of Middle-Earth.

What's the Problem?

This is all rather fun and silly, but the problem is that Spokeo markets itself as a service allowing subscribers to browse "credit estimate" and "wealth level" ratings of consumers, and even suggests that employers can use its service to evaluate potential job candidates. Beyond these purposes, Spokeo's blog regularly has featured "top uses" for Spokeo, which include finding old friends or checking up on a potential date.

In my searches, I have found that most people (including Bilbo Baggins) are either in the top 10% or bottom 20% of Spokeo's wealth meter. Most people either give to liberal or conservative causes (which often have no relation to their Political Party as listed in a Spokeo search). These and other activities listed by Spokeo can be sensitive items that may be dealbreakers to potential employers currently being courted by Spokeo. There's nothing inherently wrong about aggregating data from social networks, but posing this aggregation as information that is strong enough to evaluate a potential employee is clearly deceptive. For more information, please read our complaint to the FTC.

6/24/2010 Author:  Cyrus Nemati Consumer Privacy Location

I was one of the lucky bunch to get an early iPhone 4, so my first thought, naturally, was "I wonder how good the location privacy settings are?" This is why I work at CDT. The truth is, the location privacy settings are not terribly different from my preview of Apple's iOS 4, but there are a few similarities and differences worthy of note.

First of all, to access location privacy settings, you must first go to your General Settings. As before, the location setting looks like a simple toggle, which is somewhat misleading, as there is certainly more control than that. Between April 13th and June 24th, a slight change occurred in the full location privacy controls, seen below.

                            

                                         April 13                                                                            June 24

In the pre-release version of the operating system, there was no explanation at all for what those little icons meant. Now, we are told explicitly that the arrow pointing northeast is the location services icon, and that if it shows up in this application list, it means that I have given that application location services permission. This location services icon will also show up in the status bar of applications that use location services, as shown here. This is probably the single most useful addition to the iPhone's location services controls since a GPS unit was introduced to the device, as before now, it was very difficult (and sometimes impossible) to tell if you were being tracked.

One small problem, however. If the application you are using does not have a status bar, you'll have no idea that the application is using location services unless you jump back into the Settings application (or if you wait for 24 hours, which is when location services are reset). I've also noticed that the location services icon doesn't show up on all applications. Note that in the earlier screenshot, Accuweather was in my list of applications that I'd given location services permission to. In the screenshot below, however, the icon is not showing up on the status bar seen below (and yes, it is THAT hot here in DC).

It's possible that some apps need to be rewritten to take advantage of these new controls. The iPhone 4 technically was released only today, so a grace period might be in order. Still, these changes to the iPhone OS are very much for the better. Some of us have close relationships with our gadgets and the web, and the need to have control over that relationship is what makes changes like this positive. There are lingering questions about how Apple is using our location data since updating their Privacy Policy earlier this week, but users at least have sufficient control over when location data is collected.

5/27/2010 Author:  Cyrus Nemati Consumer Privacy More Issues in Consumer Privacy

Yesterday, Facebook unveiled a new privacy center where privacy settings could be set with much greater ease than ever before. In this video, I take a brief tour of the new privacy settings.

To view the full-sized version, click here.

5/21/2010 Author:  Cyrus Nemati Consumer Privacy Baseline Privacy Legislation

How often do you check your privacy settings on the social networks you're a member of? How often do you visit said privacy settings and are quickly frightened away by the countless switches, buttons, and toggles that would make even a submarine captain blanch?

It's not easy to take back your privacy these days. One often needs a guide to lead them through the churning, ever-changing miasma of privacy settings, not unlike Smeagol leading Frodo and Sam through the Dead Marshes. It's difficult enough for the nerds among us, but what chance do our less tech-savvy friends have of achieving whatever balance they wish in their privacy settings?

I spoke to Matt Pizzimenti yesterday, who developed the open-source tool "ReclaimPrivacy." Pizzimenti said he was frequently approached by friends and family asking him for advice on how to configure their Facebook privacy settings;  all those requests became the genesis for his homegrown privacy tool.  His aim was to develop a tool that could, first, show someone  the state of their privacy settings, and second,  provide a "fix" as appropriate.  Facebook is on record saying they have some privacy simplification efforts in the works; meanwhile, the ReclaimPrivacy tool stands in the gap and gives anyone the ability to make more informed choices when it comes to handling privacy settings.

ReclaimPrivacy isn't a browser add-on or a program, it's what's known as a "bookmarklet." That means that it can be installed on any modern browser and uses Javascript to interact with Facebook's servers. ReclaimPrivacy only interacts with Facebook's servers and doesn't send personal information anywhere else. There are one-click fixes where appropriate, and links to privacy settings for individual features where granular control is needed. As shown in this screenshot, this is a tool anyone can understand.

(click to enlarge)

Pizzimenti told me that once Facebook does release their simplified privacy controls, ReclaimPrivacy will be re-tooled to follow up the new specifications. Of course, if Facebook's simplified privacy controls make ReclaimPrivacy obsolete, Pizzimenti said he'll happy to take a break.