My Digital FootPrint

Disclosure Statement Digital ethics are adding a layer of complication to our forgetful, slow, media, telecoms, print and broadcast laws, rules, rights and regulations.  It is clear that as this blog passes 500,000 "hits" that the division between enthusiast, critic, and being able to express views with integrity is getting harder; indeed I have learnt that true reporting is a complex and a lot of work so I leave it to the experts.  Whilst journalists have ethical guidelines, the rest of us just become publishers as we have free access to the platforms. One principle that is valuable for almost everyone is disclosure and to declare any conflicts of interest.  So in that spirit, here is my first disclosure statement:- This blog is a follow on to my book - "My Digital Footprint", which is sold by Amazon ( physical and Kindle ) and FutureText ( the publisher) or free in PDF form if you want it via the website ; This blog is not sponsored; The author is not

Via Olswang The Information Commissioner's Office has published guidance to give businesses a "starting point for compliance" with new rules requiring opt-in consent to the use of cookies. The new UK legislation comes into force on 26 May. The Government continues to work with browser manufacturers on a browser-based solution, but the ICO stresses that businesses do need to take compliance steps now, not simply wait and see. The new rules and ICO guidance: what three steps should businesses take now? The background to these changes will now be familiar to many of our readers - but for a quick recap please see our April 2011 update here . In short, the obligation on websites using cookies is being "upped" from a requirement for clear and comprehensive information about cookie use (and the opportunity to refuse cookies) to a requirement for opt-in consent. The new rules are set out in Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive)

You can also get involved at the Drumbeat  Privacy Icons project page . A good blog on the proposed Icons is here at Aza Raskin blog   http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/privacy-icons/ Thoughts, comments, suggestions, and alternate constructive proposals are welcome. This is an alpha proposal for highlighting the parts of a site’s privacy policy you, as a user, should care about. For a more detailed set of thoughts on how these icons can be made enforceable, please read his original  original blog post . See the full gallery on Posterous

From MDG Advertising

meet Alessandro Acquisti - he is an Associate Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the  Heinz College  at  Carnegie Mellon University . He is also a member of the  CMU Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory , a member of  CMU Privacy Technology Center , a member of CMU Cylab , and co-director of the CMU Center for Behavioral Decision Research (CBDR). His blog and page provides links to resources on the economics of privacy, financial privacy, and the economics of anonymity: papers, people, related conferences, and other links. "Behind a privacy intrusion there is often an economic trade-off. The reduction of the cost of storing and manipulating information has led organizations to capture increasing amounts of data about individual behavior. The hunger for customization and usability has led individuals to reveal more about themselves to other parties. New trade-offs have emerged in which privacy, economics, and technology are inextricably linked: indivi

Another European Union privacy group has published a document with recommendations about location privacy the problem is that it will inform those who are influential in the EU but not really understanding the wider implications and unintended consequences. The paper is published by "Article 29 Data Protection Working Party", which is part of the justice division of the EU, and is formed by a representative in charge of data protection (privacy) in each EU member state. When the Article 29 group puts out an opinion, its recommendations can be followed by either individual EU states or the EU itself and they did set limits on how long search engines should be retaining their search data.  The recommendations aren’t law but they do appear to go far above and beyond what's been discussed so far in the U.S. just as Google,  Apple, Sony and Nintendo are being interrogated about their policies when it comes to user data its use and ownership. The key recommendations are:

Simplify360 has been exploring the relationship between the number of Facebook fans and engagement level to reveal that on an average, each new post generates 826 likes and 309 comments. The starting point was 50 Facebook fan pages with a random mix of brands from all over the world from consumer brands, to sports teams, to celebrities. What it tells us that there is some engagement but not a lot.  I would like to see the coloration of the noisy ones to see if it is many people or just a few. This also misses sentiment and they miss a lot by defining Liking Rate and Commenting Rate as the average ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ a post would generate if the number of fans for the page is normalized to one million. Only posts by the page admin are considered for the study. Overall – it says that the content was not written to generate comment, engagement, conversation or relationship….