Sunday, March 18, 2007

Privacy Digest | News that can impact your privacy. It seems that my current CMS(Content Management System) for Privacy Digest is getting sick. Since I was already planning to switch to a different CMS to manage the site, its not worth putting a lot of research and effort into cleaning up the new problems (probably a corrupted database) with the old one. I will probably doing a switch over in the next or so. There will probably be a few hiccups with the RSS/XML feeds and maybe other things. The old pages will stay in place till I can import/convert them to the new system. But since they aren't actually in the CMS they will not be visible in the local search function. I'll look at adding the Google search back for my site since they have will have the old and new content. Until the switchover goes live, you can check it out at http://www.PrivacyDigest.com/index.php And yes the index.php part is required till the switchover. But it will not be needed afterwards. Editor. 4:50:31 PM

	Saturday, March 17, 2007

Administrivia: Possible unscheduled upgrade of Privacy Digest Administrivia: Possible unscheduled upgrade of Privacy Digest. I might be implementing an unscheduled upgrade of the site due to some problems with the software I am currently using to run the site. I had been working on upgrading the software to implement some new features but may have to implement sooner than originally planned. If you would like to take a peek at the planned software take a visit to http://www.PrivacyDigest.com/index.php Yes the full URL will have to be entered until I have completed the switch over. There may be some hiccups during the process as the XML/RSS location will change along with access to the sub-topics. I plan to create mod-rewrite rules to take of this but they may not all be ready on day one. Please let me know what you think. 9:39:04 PM

Your Clickstream Data: 40 cents; Losing Your Privacy: Priceless. Your Clickstream Data: 40 cents; Losing Your Privacy: Priceless. Adam Fields points to this disturbing revelation that ISPs are apparently selling their customer[base ']s clickstream data. The guilty ISPs apparently took the same [base "]anonymization[per thou] seminar as AOL, merely replacing user names with User 1, User 2, etc. And what kind of price are they charging for such a violation of user[base ']s privacy? About 40 cents a month per user. Unbelievable. [michaelzimmer.org] 9:15:54 PM

GoDaddy, Get a Backbone and Protect Your Users' Rights. GoDaddy, Get a Backbone and Protect Your Users' Rights. A few weeks back, we wrote about how domain name registrar GoDaddy took offline Seclists.org based merely on an informal request and without providing any meaningful notice to the site's operator. Unfortunately, this isn't the only instance in which GoDaddy has carelessly ignored its users' rights. In February, EFF was contacted by an anonymous owner of a parody and criticism website forum that allegedly exposes the financial corruption and domestic scandal of a local politician in Birmingham, Alabama. As part of a civil case in family court, an attorney representing the politician's girlfriend issued a subpoena to GoDaddy seeking the identity of the website owner, who was not a party to the lawsuit. With the website owner's right to anonymous speech on the line, what did GoDaddy do? It caved without any apparent hesitation, providing its customer with a mere three days to find a lawyer and decide whether to file a challenge. GoDaddy also refused to provide a copy of the subpoena, which included essential information to determine whether and how to respond. GoDaddy promises in its privacy policy to turn over customers' information only if required by law, but its lawyers didn't give this subpoena even a shred of scrutiny. Had they done so, they could have seen it was clearly invalid -- GoDaddy is located in Arizona and Alabama state law doesn't permit a subpoena to be issued on someone out of state. That was the ultimate conclusion of the state judge who eventually quashed the subpoena, no thanks to GoDaddy. Even putting aside this aspect of GoDaddy's casual disregard for its customer's interests, the company's behavior is shameful. The First Amendment limits the ability of litigants to pierce a speaker's anonymity, particularly when that person isn't even being sued. GoDaddy owes its customers meaningful notice, time, and information so that they can fight back and protect their rights. With the help of lawyer Lewis Page, the anonymous website operator did manage to move to quash before it was too late. But GoDaddy's sloppy practices still put an unfair burden on this user and continue to threaten all of its customers' rights. For what online service providers ought to do to protect their users, check out our best practice guide. [EFF: Deep Links] 8:50:31 PM

© Copyright 2007 Paul Hardwick. Last update: 3/18/07; 7:35:59 PM.