In the age of oversharing, what don't companies know? Google reads your emails, Facebook promotes ads based on your interests, Amazon predicts what you'll buy, and even newcomer Pinterest knows what you want for your wedding.
It's estimated that American consumers spend 35.3 hours per month online, with one out of every five minutes spent on social networking sites. The rest of that time is presumably split between shopping, researching, reading, watching videos, gaming and more.
Each of these online activities is an opportunity for companies to mine data about you.
For example, after reading this, you may decide to share this article on Facebook and Twitter and search Amazon for books on online privacy. Tomorrow, your Gmail account and Facebook may show ads for online security software, you may receive a paid tweet for anti-spyware services, and Amazon could email recommendations on popular books about the Internet and privacy. It's a general example, but it clues you in on how your actions can ripple out to your entire online experience.
With much of our personal information willingly and publicly shared, companies use this data to give us what they think we want and need. Here at CreditKarma.com, we're firm believers in the safety and privacy of your online information, and wanted to share with you what you should know about online companies while cruising the Internet this very moment.
1) "They know what you're going to buy before you do." Target recently came under fire for exposing a young girl's pregnancy to her father when the retailer predicted her pregnancy based on her recent purchases, and mailed her a catalog for expectant mothers. Target's so-called "pregnancy prediction" score sounds unsavory, but it's not uncommon. Many retailers use complex algorithms to identify shopping patterns and categorize people into certain customer profiles based on purchases, and use that to push more relevant ads to you.
While retailers have always kept records on customer shopping habits, two factors have changed the game: The technology to analyze patterns and predict behavior, and the traceability of online shopping. Sites have tools that give insights into trends and preferences about you as part of a larger consumer demographic. For example, if you're buying cocoa butter lotion and prenatal supplements, retailers like Target may soon send you ads for strollers and cribs.
Online retailers can also drop browser cookies -- markers that identify specific users and track browsing activities -- as consumers shop online. Based on that data, a site can show you ads it predicts will appeal to you even as you're browsing other sites. As you're reading news on Yahoo!, you could see sales from luxury goods website Gilt on the sidebar, as prompted by your splurges there last week.
2) "They know about your financial troubles." Banks and lenders can data-mine social media networks for financial information on consumers, from your financial woes to your recent pay raise. How? Well, you just tweeted about it.
Your public tweets, Facebook statuses and Tumblr posts are fodder for banks, lenders and anyone looking for telltale financial indications about you. Ken Lin, CEO of CreditKarma.com, wrote a Mashable article explaining that banks and lenders could be looking for changes in your financial circumstances, what your friends' financial standing is, and upcoming life changes like a marriage or divorce. It's a prime opportunity to learn about your finances and tailor marketing efforts toward you. For example, tweeting about your latest bankruptcy could trigger an issuer to show advertisements for a secured card; on the other hand, tweeting about your 720 credit score could trigger ads for rewards and travel credit cards.
Not surprisingly though, social media hasn't affected the underwriting process; banks and lenders won't deny you a mortgage if you tweet about your poor credit score. However, it could affect opportunities with future employers, as evident in recently exposed hiring practices in which employers demanded Facebook passwords from their employees.
3) "They'll change the whole website according to you." One of the more beneficial perks of the Internet is the high degree of personalization it yields. Knowing your preferences and habits means sites can also tailor your user experience to your liking. For example, flash deal and deep discount sites like Gilt and Groupon have dozens of variations of their daily email tailored to different profiles of customers.
Here at CreditKarma.com, we take every measure to protect your financial information while we also tailor the website experience based on how you interact with different components of the site. A consumer interested in saving money and a consumer trying to build their credit score are going to have two very different experiences at CreditKarma.com.
The more you shop at online retailers or use websites, the more they "learn" your interests to cater specific deals and coupons you're most likely to be interested in. Even Facebook's privacy settings, as hotly contested as they've been, passively saves your preferred settings as you interact with the site to make it as convenient as possible for you the next time you visit.
"In the end, consumers should be aware that any public information is fair game in this economic environment, and social media may be the newest cautionary landscape," Lin writes.
As our online activity inhabits a gray area where public intersects with private, the onus is ours to protect ourselves.
Remember that all the information we share, no matter how innocuous, can be a marker of your financial, demographic or consumer profile. It shapes your online experiences from what advertisements you'll see, to how a website will be presented to you and, of course, to what your professional and personal peers think of you.
In short, follow an altered version of your mother's advice: If you can't tweet anything nice, don't tweet anything at all.
-Originally posted on Forbes
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
How to Influence People and to Win Facebook Friends
Instead of picketing outside company headquarters, an advocacy group is using Facebook ads to try to influence people whose profiles identify them as employees of Freddie Mac or JPMorgan Chase.
The anti-foreclosure ad campaign, which launches today, asks Freddie and Chase employees to talk to their CEOs about a veteran -- a former Marine -- who's facing eviction in California.
"This is not any sort of attack on the employees there," said Jim Pugh of Rebuild the Dream, which is running the ad campaign. "We're trying to let them know what's happening."
The ad that targets Freddie Mac employees features a small picture of CEO Charles Haldeman's face, and the message, "Freddie Mac did what?? Freddie Mac is evicting a former Marine who's been trying to pay his mortgage. Tell CEO Haldeman to work out a fair deal with him!" according to a copy of the ad provided by Pugh.
The JPMorgan Chase ad is similar, but with a Chase logo instead of an executive's face.
We've contacted Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase spokespeople for comment, and also reached out to Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase employees on Facebook. If you've seen one of these ads, please let us know.
Targeted online advertising is nothing new. (As anyone who has changed their Facebook status to "engaged" can tell you, a simple update can bring a deluge of new ads.) But political campaigns and advocacy groups are increasingly adopting the same microtargeting tactics that companies use.
Rick Perry's campaign, for instance, targeted faith-focused ads to people in Iowa who listed themselves as Christians on Facebook, and ads featuring his wife to the state's female conservatives, Politico reported.
According to FEC data, Endorse Liberty, a super PAC that supports Ron Paul, has led the way on Facebook expenditures, spending a total of $241,508 through January 2012.
And it's not just Facebook and Google where campaigns and activists are doing microtargeting. The music site Pandora announced last year that it would be selling political ad space targeted to the zip codes of particular listeners, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There's nothing inherently problematic about targeted ads. Campaigns have been using direct mail to target particular voters for decades. Digital targeting can be a cost-effective way of spending advertising dollars, especially for smaller groups, like Rebuild the Dream, which sees the ads as a great way to get more bang for their buck in terms of reaching their intended audience. (The group also launched a special donation drive specifically for the Facebook ad buy.) ProPublica even used Facebook ads to try to find sources for our 2009 series, When Caregivers Harm.
But as the ability to use data to reach particular people grows more sophisticated, targeting risks crossing privacy lines, as demonstrated by a recent New York Times article on how Target knew a teenage customer was pregnant before her father did.
What's clear is that if all this microtargeting translates into electoral gains, the scale and sophistication of these efforts will continue to grow, and the data science that gained traction in 2008 will become a regular part of campaigning. In the meantime, the Obama campaign's already substantial data team continues to hire statistical modeling analysts and analytics engineers.
The increasing ease and flexibility of online targeting also raises new questions about how politicians are presenting themselves to different audiences, how much campaigns need to tell their supporters about the personal information they collect -- and what will happen to the massive databases of voter information collected during the 2012 presidential campaign. Will they be sold? Passed on to other politicians?
Rebuild the Dream, which focuses on economic issues, was launched by MoveOn.org in 2011, but has been independent since January, Pugh said. The group's president is former Obama green jobs adviser Van Jones.
Pugh worked on the Obama campaign's digital analytics team in 2008 while also trying to finish a Ph.D. dissertation in robotics, and later did similar work for the Democratic National Committee. He said he was not sure what kind of reaction the ads would receive.
"I would imagine that people are fairly used to targeted ads at this point," he said. But while people who work in politics and advocacy may be used to receiving Facebook ads targeting specific causes, "It's hard to know in advance how unusual it will seem to the employees of Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase."
The anti-foreclosure ad campaign, which launches today, asks Freddie and Chase employees to talk to their CEOs about a veteran -- a former Marine -- who's facing eviction in California.
"This is not any sort of attack on the employees there," said Jim Pugh of Rebuild the Dream, which is running the ad campaign. "We're trying to let them know what's happening."
The ad that targets Freddie Mac employees features a small picture of CEO Charles Haldeman's face, and the message, "Freddie Mac did what?? Freddie Mac is evicting a former Marine who's been trying to pay his mortgage. Tell CEO Haldeman to work out a fair deal with him!" according to a copy of the ad provided by Pugh.
The JPMorgan Chase ad is similar, but with a Chase logo instead of an executive's face.
We've contacted Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase spokespeople for comment, and also reached out to Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase employees on Facebook. If you've seen one of these ads, please let us know.
Targeted online advertising is nothing new. (As anyone who has changed their Facebook status to "engaged" can tell you, a simple update can bring a deluge of new ads.) But political campaigns and advocacy groups are increasingly adopting the same microtargeting tactics that companies use.
Rick Perry's campaign, for instance, targeted faith-focused ads to people in Iowa who listed themselves as Christians on Facebook, and ads featuring his wife to the state's female conservatives, Politico reported.
According to FEC data, Endorse Liberty, a super PAC that supports Ron Paul, has led the way on Facebook expenditures, spending a total of $241,508 through January 2012.
And it's not just Facebook and Google where campaigns and activists are doing microtargeting. The music site Pandora announced last year that it would be selling political ad space targeted to the zip codes of particular listeners, the Wall Street Journal reported.
There's nothing inherently problematic about targeted ads. Campaigns have been using direct mail to target particular voters for decades. Digital targeting can be a cost-effective way of spending advertising dollars, especially for smaller groups, like Rebuild the Dream, which sees the ads as a great way to get more bang for their buck in terms of reaching their intended audience. (The group also launched a special donation drive specifically for the Facebook ad buy.) ProPublica even used Facebook ads to try to find sources for our 2009 series, When Caregivers Harm.
But as the ability to use data to reach particular people grows more sophisticated, targeting risks crossing privacy lines, as demonstrated by a recent New York Times article on how Target knew a teenage customer was pregnant before her father did.
What's clear is that if all this microtargeting translates into electoral gains, the scale and sophistication of these efforts will continue to grow, and the data science that gained traction in 2008 will become a regular part of campaigning. In the meantime, the Obama campaign's already substantial data team continues to hire statistical modeling analysts and analytics engineers.
The increasing ease and flexibility of online targeting also raises new questions about how politicians are presenting themselves to different audiences, how much campaigns need to tell their supporters about the personal information they collect -- and what will happen to the massive databases of voter information collected during the 2012 presidential campaign. Will they be sold? Passed on to other politicians?
Rebuild the Dream, which focuses on economic issues, was launched by MoveOn.org in 2011, but has been independent since January, Pugh said. The group's president is former Obama green jobs adviser Van Jones.
Pugh worked on the Obama campaign's digital analytics team in 2008 while also trying to finish a Ph.D. dissertation in robotics, and later did similar work for the Democratic National Committee. He said he was not sure what kind of reaction the ads would receive.
"I would imagine that people are fairly used to targeted ads at this point," he said. But while people who work in politics and advocacy may be used to receiving Facebook ads targeting specific causes, "It's hard to know in advance how unusual it will seem to the employees of Freddie Mac and JP Morgan Chase."
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Pinterest Now Ranks 3rd on Social Networks
That didn’t take long: Pinterest is now comfortably in third place in terms of traffic for social networks, trailing Facebook and Twitter.
Experian said Pinterest saw its traffic jump 50 percent in February compared with January, vaulting it past more entrenched social networks such as LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Google Plus.
Facebook not only held onto the top spot, but retained dominance in average minutes per month, clocking 405, compared with 89 for Pinterest, according to comScore.
Perhaps helping Pinterest’s leapfrogging over Google Plus to take the number three spot is connecting to Facebook. The search giant remains frozen out of that due to AdSense not yet complying with Facebook’s advertising rules, among other issues.
Pinterest seems to be gaining many users from virality on Facebook, where users see news feed stories about their friends activating accounts on the pinning site. But so far the demographics are still skewed on the number three site, according to our sibling blog Social Times, which said:
The image bookmarking site has grown exponentially since the site launched in March 2010. There were 21.5 million total visits to the site during the week ending January 28, 2012, which is nearly 30 times the number of total visits that Pinterest had received six months earlier. From January 2012 to February 2012, traffic went up 50 percent.
The crowd is 60 percent female (which is a different number than we’ve reported previously) and 55 percent of them are between the ages of 25 and 44. California and Texas provide the most traffic, but Pinterest has more visitors from the midwest, northwest, and southeast than sites like Facebook and YouTube.
Home decor, fashion, and food are all popular categories on the site, but “hobbies and crafts” in particular is the category to watch. Pinterest users outnumbered visitors to other hobbies and crafts sites in 19 states. The baby boom and boomerang generations were most likely to spend time in this category, with Pinterest capturing 10 percent of this audience.
Experian’s analysts say that social media communities are becoming less about friendships and more about common interests: a new facet of the overall movement toward social personalization.
Pinterest hits both targets with a Facebook integration as well as an open community where users can explore and share images with people outside their networks.
While Pinterest and Facebook work together as partners rather than rivals, the number one social network has duly noted the popularity of pinning, adding it to timeline pages. Right now, you can only pin one thing at a time to a page, and the capability doesn’t yet extend to profiles as a native feature.
However, a third-party application called Friendsheet transforms Facebook profiles into a Pinterest-like interface. We wonder whether the recent liking of this app by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg signaled the beginnings of talks toward a possible acquisition of the startup.
Experian said Pinterest saw its traffic jump 50 percent in February compared with January, vaulting it past more entrenched social networks such as LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Google Plus.
Facebook not only held onto the top spot, but retained dominance in average minutes per month, clocking 405, compared with 89 for Pinterest, according to comScore.
Perhaps helping Pinterest’s leapfrogging over Google Plus to take the number three spot is connecting to Facebook. The search giant remains frozen out of that due to AdSense not yet complying with Facebook’s advertising rules, among other issues.
Pinterest seems to be gaining many users from virality on Facebook, where users see news feed stories about their friends activating accounts on the pinning site. But so far the demographics are still skewed on the number three site, according to our sibling blog Social Times, which said:
The image bookmarking site has grown exponentially since the site launched in March 2010. There were 21.5 million total visits to the site during the week ending January 28, 2012, which is nearly 30 times the number of total visits that Pinterest had received six months earlier. From January 2012 to February 2012, traffic went up 50 percent.
The crowd is 60 percent female (which is a different number than we’ve reported previously) and 55 percent of them are between the ages of 25 and 44. California and Texas provide the most traffic, but Pinterest has more visitors from the midwest, northwest, and southeast than sites like Facebook and YouTube.
Home decor, fashion, and food are all popular categories on the site, but “hobbies and crafts” in particular is the category to watch. Pinterest users outnumbered visitors to other hobbies and crafts sites in 19 states. The baby boom and boomerang generations were most likely to spend time in this category, with Pinterest capturing 10 percent of this audience.
Experian’s analysts say that social media communities are becoming less about friendships and more about common interests: a new facet of the overall movement toward social personalization.
Pinterest hits both targets with a Facebook integration as well as an open community where users can explore and share images with people outside their networks.
While Pinterest and Facebook work together as partners rather than rivals, the number one social network has duly noted the popularity of pinning, adding it to timeline pages. Right now, you can only pin one thing at a time to a page, and the capability doesn’t yet extend to profiles as a native feature.
However, a third-party application called Friendsheet transforms Facebook profiles into a Pinterest-like interface. We wonder whether the recent liking of this app by Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg signaled the beginnings of talks toward a possible acquisition of the startup.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Party up, Pinterest users.
Your beloved social image-bookmarking site has just reached (another) all-time high.
According to marketing service Experian, which recently released its 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Pinterest is now the third most popular social network on the web, behind Facebook and Twitter.
According to VentureBeat, just five months ago, in November 2011, Pinterest had occupied the number seven spot on Experian's list of top visited social networking sites, trailing behind Facebook, Twitter, Tagged, LinkedIn, MySpace, and myYearbook.
But since then, the site's been hitting huge milestones at a fast clip. Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that the site hit 10 million monthly unique U.S. visitors faster than any other site in the history of the web. And Pinterest kept growing. About a month later, its traffic rose 52 percent, from 11.7 million unique visitors in January to 17.8 million in February.
Looking at Pinterest's growth over a longer period is even more mind-blowing: Experian pointed out that the nearly 21.5 millon visits the site received during the week ending January 28, 2012, was nearly 30 times the amount it received just six months earlier, during the week ending July 30, 2011.
Are you surprised by how quickly Pinterest has grown? Let us know in the comments! But before you do, make sure you flip through the slideshow (below) to check out 27 gorgeous Pinboards you need to follow. Then, visit our slideshow of tools that will turn you into a Pinterest pro! If Pinterest isn't your cup of tea, we've also got a roundup of 11 Pinterest-like sites that might cater to your specific interests.
According to marketing service Experian, which recently released its 2012 Digital Marketer: Benchmark and Trend Report, Pinterest is now the third most popular social network on the web, behind Facebook and Twitter.
According to VentureBeat, just five months ago, in November 2011, Pinterest had occupied the number seven spot on Experian's list of top visited social networking sites, trailing behind Facebook, Twitter, Tagged, LinkedIn, MySpace, and myYearbook.
But since then, the site's been hitting huge milestones at a fast clip. Earlier this year, TechCrunch reported that the site hit 10 million monthly unique U.S. visitors faster than any other site in the history of the web. And Pinterest kept growing. About a month later, its traffic rose 52 percent, from 11.7 million unique visitors in January to 17.8 million in February.
Looking at Pinterest's growth over a longer period is even more mind-blowing: Experian pointed out that the nearly 21.5 millon visits the site received during the week ending January 28, 2012, was nearly 30 times the amount it received just six months earlier, during the week ending July 30, 2011.
Are you surprised by how quickly Pinterest has grown? Let us know in the comments! But before you do, make sure you flip through the slideshow (below) to check out 27 gorgeous Pinboards you need to follow. Then, visit our slideshow of tools that will turn you into a Pinterest pro! If Pinterest isn't your cup of tea, we've also got a roundup of 11 Pinterest-like sites that might cater to your specific interests.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Marine Who Criticized Obama On Facebook Recommended To Be Dismissed By The Board
Marine Corps officials are seeking additional guidance from the Pentagon regarding service members' use of social media amid discharge proceedings against a Camp Pendleton sergeant who criticized President Barack Obama on Facebook.
Joe Kasper, spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said Friday that Hunter's office was notified of the plans in a letter from a Marine Corps major general.
Hunter had urged authorities to withdraw discharge proceedings against Sgt. Gary Stein because he said the Pentagon's policy limiting service members' free is ambiguous about the use of social media.
A Marine Corps administrative board concluded after a daylong hearing Thursday at Camp Pendleton that Stein violated the policy when he posted anti-Obama comments and images on Facebook, including allegedly putting the president's face on a "Jackass" movie poster.
The board recommended that Stein be given an other-than-honorable discharge. That would mean Stein would lose his benefits and would not be allowed on any military base.
The board's recommendations go to a general who will either accept or deny them. If the general disagrees with the board, the case could go to the secretary of the Navy.
Stein's lawyers and Hunter and argued that the Pentagon policy is vague and military officials do not understand it.
Stein has said his opinions are his own and he put a disclaimer on his Facebook page saying so. His attorneys argued that service members have a right to voice their opinions as long as they do not appear to be presenting their views as being endorsed by the military.
"If there is anything good to come out of this, it's the fact that the Marines realize the guidelines need to be updated," Kasper said Friday. "It's just too bad it took all of this to get there."
The Marine Corps has said it decided to take administrative action after Stein declared on Facebook that he would not follow orders from Obama. Stein later clarified that statement saying he would not follow unlawful orders.
The military has had a policy since the Civil War limiting the free speech of service members, including criticism of the commander in chief.
Pentagon directives say military personnel in uniform cannot sponsor a political club; participate in any TV or radio program or group discussion that advocates for or against a political party, candidate or cause; or speak at any event promoting a political movement.
Hunter told Marine Corps officials in his letter supporting Stein that the policy "is both vague and contradicting in the context of new `social media.' In fact, nothing in the directive actually mentions social media and what activity is or is not approved for active duty service members."
He said the policy needs to be updated to reflect "the changing dynamics of social communication" that includes a forum for the interaction between friends, families and acquaintances.
During Stein's hearing, the prosecutor, Capt. John Torresala, said Stein ignored warnings from his superiors about his postings.
The government submitted screen grabs of Stein's postings on one Facebook page he created called Armed Forces Tea Party, which the prosecutor said included the image of Obama on the "Jackass" movie poster. Stein also superimposed Obama's image on a poster for "The Incredibles" movie that he changed to "The Horribles," the prosecutor said.
Torresala also said anti-Obama comments by Stein that were posted on a Facebook page used by Marine meteorologists were prejudicial to good order and discipline, and could have influenced junior Marines.
Stein's lawyers argued that the nine-year Marine, whose service was to end in four months, was exercising his First Amendment rights.
"We're truly surprised and disappointed but it was an honor to fight for a hero like Sgt. Stein and every other Marine's right to speak freely," Stein's defense attorney, Marine Capt. James Baehr, said after the hearing that ended close to midnight Thursday.
Stein told board members he loved the Marine Corps and wanted to re-enlist, Baehr said.
Stein said his statement about Obama was part of an online debate about NATO allowing U.S. troops to be tried for the Quran burnings in Afghanistan.
In that context, he said, he was stating that he would not follow orders from the president if it involved detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.
Stein said he was removed from his job at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego last month and given a desk job with no access to computers.
Joe Kasper, spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said Friday that Hunter's office was notified of the plans in a letter from a Marine Corps major general.
Hunter had urged authorities to withdraw discharge proceedings against Sgt. Gary Stein because he said the Pentagon's policy limiting service members' free is ambiguous about the use of social media.
A Marine Corps administrative board concluded after a daylong hearing Thursday at Camp Pendleton that Stein violated the policy when he posted anti-Obama comments and images on Facebook, including allegedly putting the president's face on a "Jackass" movie poster.
The board recommended that Stein be given an other-than-honorable discharge. That would mean Stein would lose his benefits and would not be allowed on any military base.
The board's recommendations go to a general who will either accept or deny them. If the general disagrees with the board, the case could go to the secretary of the Navy.
Stein's lawyers and Hunter and argued that the Pentagon policy is vague and military officials do not understand it.
Stein has said his opinions are his own and he put a disclaimer on his Facebook page saying so. His attorneys argued that service members have a right to voice their opinions as long as they do not appear to be presenting their views as being endorsed by the military.
"If there is anything good to come out of this, it's the fact that the Marines realize the guidelines need to be updated," Kasper said Friday. "It's just too bad it took all of this to get there."
The Marine Corps has said it decided to take administrative action after Stein declared on Facebook that he would not follow orders from Obama. Stein later clarified that statement saying he would not follow unlawful orders.
The military has had a policy since the Civil War limiting the free speech of service members, including criticism of the commander in chief.
Pentagon directives say military personnel in uniform cannot sponsor a political club; participate in any TV or radio program or group discussion that advocates for or against a political party, candidate or cause; or speak at any event promoting a political movement.
Hunter told Marine Corps officials in his letter supporting Stein that the policy "is both vague and contradicting in the context of new `social media.' In fact, nothing in the directive actually mentions social media and what activity is or is not approved for active duty service members."
He said the policy needs to be updated to reflect "the changing dynamics of social communication" that includes a forum for the interaction between friends, families and acquaintances.
During Stein's hearing, the prosecutor, Capt. John Torresala, said Stein ignored warnings from his superiors about his postings.
The government submitted screen grabs of Stein's postings on one Facebook page he created called Armed Forces Tea Party, which the prosecutor said included the image of Obama on the "Jackass" movie poster. Stein also superimposed Obama's image on a poster for "The Incredibles" movie that he changed to "The Horribles," the prosecutor said.
Torresala also said anti-Obama comments by Stein that were posted on a Facebook page used by Marine meteorologists were prejudicial to good order and discipline, and could have influenced junior Marines.
Stein's lawyers argued that the nine-year Marine, whose service was to end in four months, was exercising his First Amendment rights.
"We're truly surprised and disappointed but it was an honor to fight for a hero like Sgt. Stein and every other Marine's right to speak freely," Stein's defense attorney, Marine Capt. James Baehr, said after the hearing that ended close to midnight Thursday.
Stein told board members he loved the Marine Corps and wanted to re-enlist, Baehr said.
Stein said his statement about Obama was part of an online debate about NATO allowing U.S. troops to be tried for the Quran burnings in Afghanistan.
In that context, he said, he was stating that he would not follow orders from the president if it involved detaining U.S. citizens, disarming them or doing anything else that he believes would violate their constitutional rights.
Stein said he was removed from his job at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot in San Diego last month and given a desk job with no access to computers.
iOS, Android Affected By Facebook Security Hole
A security hole affects more mobile devices than previously reported, enabling theft of identity and other data from Facebook profiles.
Facebook had claimed that this security hole only affected devices that had their operating systems modified, or jailbroken. That assertion is false, as the vulnerability includes all Android and Apple gizmos.
The security hole was initially discovered by security researcher Gareth Wright, who used iExplorer, a free application that allows users to browse files on their iPhones or iPads as if they were storage devices.
He discovered a plain text Facebook access token — an encapsulation of a user’s identity and personal information — in Omgpop’s Draw Something mobile game.
After copying the access token and testing it with Facebook Query Language, he was able to access “pretty much any information” from his Facebook account.
He then accessed the directory for the Facebook app with iExplorer and accessed the com.Facebook.plist file, finding his login information in plain text. Wright sent the plist file to a local blogger he is friendly with, and the blogger was able to access his Facebook account and perform activities such as posting to his wall, liking pages, sending private messages, adding apps, and sending pictures via Draw Something.
Wright installed the plist file on four other devices and the results were the same, so he contacted Facebook, which initially responded that the problem had already been reported and was being worked on.
He then tested the plist issue with several devices that would typically be used to illegally obtain user information, and Wright was able to collect more than 1,000 plist files in one week (he did not copy any of the data).
Facebook issued a long statement, blaming devices that were jailbroken, or modified, for the security hole:
Facebook’s iOS and Android applications are only intended for use with the manufacturer-provided operating system, and access tokens are only vulnerable if they have modified their mobile OS (i.e. jailbroken iOS or modded Android), or have granted a malicious actor access to the physical device.
We develop and test our application on an unmodified version of mobile operating systems and rely on the native protections as a foundation for development, deployment, and security, all of which is compromised on a jailbroken device. As Apple states, “Unauthorized modification of iOS could allow hackers to steal personal information … or introduce malware or viruses.”
To protect themselves, we recommend that all users abstain from modifying their mobile OS to prevent any application instability or security issues.
End of story? Not quite. Wright and The Next Web were both able to duplicate the security hole on devices that were not jailbroken or modified.
Wright posted:
I feel I should reiterate Facebook is playing this down and that’s fine, but saying it only affects stolen and jailbroken phones is not.
The biggest risk is from malware and viruses designed to slurp data from devices plugged into PCs, so despite what any other articles say, jailbroken or not, you are vulnerable.
When tested, this worked on locked, pass-coded, unmodified iOS devices.
The Next Web also shared its experiences:
As a matter of fact, we have duplicated the Facebook hack here at TNW labs (using our own devices) and it works perfectly well without a jailbreak.
If you read the Facebook statement carefully, however, it does cover its bases when it states that you are vulnerable if you have “granted a malicious actor access to the physical device.” That is absolutely true — your device would need to be accessed physically somehow, but it doesn’t mean that it would need to be stolen or that another person would even need to touch it.
Facebook had claimed that this security hole only affected devices that had their operating systems modified, or jailbroken. That assertion is false, as the vulnerability includes all Android and Apple gizmos.
The security hole was initially discovered by security researcher Gareth Wright, who used iExplorer, a free application that allows users to browse files on their iPhones or iPads as if they were storage devices.
He discovered a plain text Facebook access token — an encapsulation of a user’s identity and personal information — in Omgpop’s Draw Something mobile game.
After copying the access token and testing it with Facebook Query Language, he was able to access “pretty much any information” from his Facebook account.
He then accessed the directory for the Facebook app with iExplorer and accessed the com.Facebook.plist file, finding his login information in plain text. Wright sent the plist file to a local blogger he is friendly with, and the blogger was able to access his Facebook account and perform activities such as posting to his wall, liking pages, sending private messages, adding apps, and sending pictures via Draw Something.
Wright installed the plist file on four other devices and the results were the same, so he contacted Facebook, which initially responded that the problem had already been reported and was being worked on.
He then tested the plist issue with several devices that would typically be used to illegally obtain user information, and Wright was able to collect more than 1,000 plist files in one week (he did not copy any of the data).
Facebook issued a long statement, blaming devices that were jailbroken, or modified, for the security hole:
Facebook’s iOS and Android applications are only intended for use with the manufacturer-provided operating system, and access tokens are only vulnerable if they have modified their mobile OS (i.e. jailbroken iOS or modded Android), or have granted a malicious actor access to the physical device.
We develop and test our application on an unmodified version of mobile operating systems and rely on the native protections as a foundation for development, deployment, and security, all of which is compromised on a jailbroken device. As Apple states, “Unauthorized modification of iOS could allow hackers to steal personal information … or introduce malware or viruses.”
To protect themselves, we recommend that all users abstain from modifying their mobile OS to prevent any application instability or security issues.
End of story? Not quite. Wright and The Next Web were both able to duplicate the security hole on devices that were not jailbroken or modified.
Wright posted:
I feel I should reiterate Facebook is playing this down and that’s fine, but saying it only affects stolen and jailbroken phones is not.
The biggest risk is from malware and viruses designed to slurp data from devices plugged into PCs, so despite what any other articles say, jailbroken or not, you are vulnerable.
When tested, this worked on locked, pass-coded, unmodified iOS devices.
The Next Web also shared its experiences:
As a matter of fact, we have duplicated the Facebook hack here at TNW labs (using our own devices) and it works perfectly well without a jailbreak.
If you read the Facebook statement carefully, however, it does cover its bases when it states that you are vulnerable if you have “granted a malicious actor access to the physical device.” That is absolutely true — your device would need to be accessed physically somehow, but it doesn’t mean that it would need to be stolen or that another person would even need to touch it.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Facebook Is Stressful For Step-Parents
Did you know that there is no delineation for a stepparent on Facebook? When you fill out your profile, your parental choices are only "mother" and father." No "stepmother". No "stepfather". There are no "stepchild" choices, either. Only "daughter" or "son". Pleasantly, there is a space in the virtual universe where a stepparent is not estranged or considered a third wheel -- we are full-fledged members of our virtual families.
Facebook forces the universal question faced by all stepfamilies. How do you define your family? Our profiles are force us to answer tough questions. We are offered three life choices:
1. Step kids can choose the "Mother" or "Father" button.
As often happens in a divorced family, the children are forced to make the toughest decisions. Facebook presents a similar conundrum. Do you list your stepparent as a mother or father? Does this listing denounce your loyalty to your biological parent? What a terrible position to be faced with on Facebook!
The children that choose to click on the "mother" or "father" buttons are brave souls. They are teaching us a universal lesson -- love is infinite. There is plenty to go around. Love does not understand the concept of competition because it is abundant. Loving one person does not mean that you do not love another. As is often the case, these kids may be teaching their parents a lesson.
2. They can also ignore their stepparents.
The easy decision is to ignore your stepparents by not including them in your Facebook profile and pretending they do not exist. Many stepparents will tell you that they feel as if they are invisible, and exclusion from your children's profile is painful. It hurts. Once again, it is tough to ask your children to choose between their parents. A child's loyalty to their biological parents is completely normal. The lesson is for the stepparent to rise above the profile. Our main job is to offer compassion, devoid of ego or competitiveness. It is a great lesson that we teach our children through our dignity and silence.
3. Stepparents can select the "Son or Daughter" button.
Does the stepparent click on the "son or daughter" button on their profiles? Fears abound. You do not want to anger the biological parent. Yet, you do not want to ignore your stepchildren. For those that accept the challenge and click on those buttons, it is a message to the world that you love your children and consider them your full-fledged family. No exceptions. No explanations.
There is a lesson here for the biological parents. If you feel anger when you see these profiles, understand that you are giving in to your ego that loves to create fantastical fears. Do you have a limit to the number of people that can love your children? Can only certain people love your children? Maybe more love is a good thing. Perhaps anyone that wants to love your children is welcome.
Remember that Facebook profiles can always be changed. Where your family is now does not dictate where they may be a year from now. It is one of the beautiful things about Facebook and life.
Facebook forces the universal question faced by all stepfamilies. How do you define your family? Our profiles are force us to answer tough questions. We are offered three life choices:
1. Step kids can choose the "Mother" or "Father" button.
As often happens in a divorced family, the children are forced to make the toughest decisions. Facebook presents a similar conundrum. Do you list your stepparent as a mother or father? Does this listing denounce your loyalty to your biological parent? What a terrible position to be faced with on Facebook!
The children that choose to click on the "mother" or "father" buttons are brave souls. They are teaching us a universal lesson -- love is infinite. There is plenty to go around. Love does not understand the concept of competition because it is abundant. Loving one person does not mean that you do not love another. As is often the case, these kids may be teaching their parents a lesson.
2. They can also ignore their stepparents.
The easy decision is to ignore your stepparents by not including them in your Facebook profile and pretending they do not exist. Many stepparents will tell you that they feel as if they are invisible, and exclusion from your children's profile is painful. It hurts. Once again, it is tough to ask your children to choose between their parents. A child's loyalty to their biological parents is completely normal. The lesson is for the stepparent to rise above the profile. Our main job is to offer compassion, devoid of ego or competitiveness. It is a great lesson that we teach our children through our dignity and silence.
3. Stepparents can select the "Son or Daughter" button.
Does the stepparent click on the "son or daughter" button on their profiles? Fears abound. You do not want to anger the biological parent. Yet, you do not want to ignore your stepchildren. For those that accept the challenge and click on those buttons, it is a message to the world that you love your children and consider them your full-fledged family. No exceptions. No explanations.
There is a lesson here for the biological parents. If you feel anger when you see these profiles, understand that you are giving in to your ego that loves to create fantastical fears. Do you have a limit to the number of people that can love your children? Can only certain people love your children? Maybe more love is a good thing. Perhaps anyone that wants to love your children is welcome.
Remember that Facebook profiles can always be changed. Where your family is now does not dictate where they may be a year from now. It is one of the beautiful things about Facebook and life.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Facebook To Rival Amazon And Ebay?
A group of e-commerce start-ups, backed by some of the tech world's most pedigreed financiers, are betting that Facebook Inc. can become an e-commerce powerhouse to rival Amazon.com Inc. and eBay Inc.
As the world's largest social network hurtles toward a $5 billion initial public offering, it will come under more pressure from Wall Street to find new sources of profit growth and reduce its reliance on advertising, which accounted for 85 percent of its 2011 revenue.
Some entrepreneurs and investors increasingly think "f-commerce" - meaning e-commerce on Facebook - is the answer. Start-ups such as BeachMint, Yardsellr, Oodle and Fab.com are coming up with novel ways to persuade Facebook users to not just connect with friends on the social network, but to shop as well.
Backed by tens of millions of dollars from venture capital firms like Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and other big investors like Goldman Sachs, these start-ups are pushing out shopping apps, hosting online garage sales and testing out new business models on Facebook.
"E-commerce is a huge category with very strong tailwinds and it's a natural move for Facebook," said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares and has a stake in BeachMint.
Amazon revolutionized online shopping by crunching lots of customer and purchase data to come up with relevant, personalized recommendations. In the same vein, Facebook's combination of data, analytics and payment technology could fuel the next generation of e-commerce, Schwerin said.
Facebook declined to comment, but investors said the company understands the importance of having an e-commerce strategy.
"It's a big imperative for them," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta of Accel Partners, an early backer of Facebook. "They understand it's an important strategic benefit for them to make e-commerce players successful on the platform."
BIG BRAND STORES FLOP
Facebook had 845 million monthly active users at the end of 2011, far higher than Amazon's 164 million active accounts or the eBay online marketplace's 100 million active users.
But despite that huge base, Facebook is primarily a way to connect with friends, and not an online shopper's first destination. Big retailers including J.C. Penney, Gap and Nordstrom had previously set up stores on Facebook but shut them after generating few sales.
That has not stopped venture capital firms from pouring money into rookie companies they think have cracked the code.
There is a lot of buzz about Fab.com, a one-year-old company that has amassed 2 million users who broadcast their purchases via a "bought" button that advertises their shopping habits to friends. Fab built its user base in part by offering $5 a month to those who sign up - Chief Executive Jason Goldberg said "tens of thousands" opted in.
BeachMint co-founder Diego Berdakin said his company had set up a live video event called StyleMint.tv last holiday season featuring a brief appearance by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sister, Randi Zuckerberg. For about two hours, they showcased BeachMint products that people could buy with one click.
More than 50,000 Facebook users watched the show and a "huge percentage" bought something, Berdakin said, adding, "At the time, it was the biggest day in our history in terms of sales."
Yardsellr, started in 2010 by former eBay manager Danny Leffel, organizes people into 3,000 communities, or "blocks," based on common interests. When someone posts a product for sale, it is sent to the news feeds of people in that block and purchases can be made with a few clicks.
Gross merchandise sales, a measure of the value of products, has been growing about 30 percent a month, according to Leffel. "Social commerce could be bigger than eBay," he argued.
Then there's Oodle, a start-up headed by Craig Donato, who runs Facebook's official marketplace, which boasts more than 3 million unique monthly users. When buyers and sellers post items, their Facebook identities are attached, giving users more confidence in the transactions, Donato said.
MAKING MONEY
For now, Facebook is making money mostly by selling ads to merchants trying to target potential customers. But many experts say it is a matter of time before the eight-year-old social network will ask for a cut of shopping transactions, or seek other ways to profit.
They point to Facebook's relationship with online games developer Zynga Inc as an example. Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of revenue generated from the sale of virtual goods used to play Zynga games.
Gamers pay for those virtual goods using Facebook Credits, a virtual currency that could eventually be used to buy physical goods, according to some Internet entrepreneurs.
"Facebook has a huge opportunity to monetize e-commerce," said Christian Taylor, chief executive of Payvment, a startup that operates thousands of Facebook stores. "They have the infrastructure and team to pursue that."
Others downplay the potential for Facebook Credits, saying physical goods offer much thinner profit margins than virtual products.
"The 30 percent model is great for products with near-zero cost of goods sold," said Kevin Hartz, head of ticketing start-up Eventbrite, which works closely with Facebook. "But selling a TV with thin margins, that model will just not apply."
Nevertheless, if e-commerce on Facebook takes off, many expect the social network to find a way to make money off it.
"When you build on top of a platform like Facebook, there is always the risk that the platform provider decides to change the rules later on," said Laura Valverde of Beetailer, which runs more than 3,000 stores on Facebook.
"We have seen this with Facebook Credits and games. So, once social commerce fully takes off, it will only be natural that Facebook tries to benefit one way or another from it."
As the world's largest social network hurtles toward a $5 billion initial public offering, it will come under more pressure from Wall Street to find new sources of profit growth and reduce its reliance on advertising, which accounted for 85 percent of its 2011 revenue.
Some entrepreneurs and investors increasingly think "f-commerce" - meaning e-commerce on Facebook - is the answer. Start-ups such as BeachMint, Yardsellr, Oodle and Fab.com are coming up with novel ways to persuade Facebook users to not just connect with friends on the social network, but to shop as well.
Backed by tens of millions of dollars from venture capital firms like Accel Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, and other big investors like Goldman Sachs, these start-ups are pushing out shopping apps, hosting online garage sales and testing out new business models on Facebook.
"E-commerce is a huge category with very strong tailwinds and it's a natural move for Facebook," said Sam Schwerin of Millennium Technology Value Partners, which owns Facebook shares and has a stake in BeachMint.
Amazon revolutionized online shopping by crunching lots of customer and purchase data to come up with relevant, personalized recommendations. In the same vein, Facebook's combination of data, analytics and payment technology could fuel the next generation of e-commerce, Schwerin said.
Facebook declined to comment, but investors said the company understands the importance of having an e-commerce strategy.
"It's a big imperative for them," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta of Accel Partners, an early backer of Facebook. "They understand it's an important strategic benefit for them to make e-commerce players successful on the platform."
BIG BRAND STORES FLOP
Facebook had 845 million monthly active users at the end of 2011, far higher than Amazon's 164 million active accounts or the eBay online marketplace's 100 million active users.
But despite that huge base, Facebook is primarily a way to connect with friends, and not an online shopper's first destination. Big retailers including J.C. Penney, Gap and Nordstrom had previously set up stores on Facebook but shut them after generating few sales.
That has not stopped venture capital firms from pouring money into rookie companies they think have cracked the code.
There is a lot of buzz about Fab.com, a one-year-old company that has amassed 2 million users who broadcast their purchases via a "bought" button that advertises their shopping habits to friends. Fab built its user base in part by offering $5 a month to those who sign up - Chief Executive Jason Goldberg said "tens of thousands" opted in.
BeachMint co-founder Diego Berdakin said his company had set up a live video event called StyleMint.tv last holiday season featuring a brief appearance by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sister, Randi Zuckerberg. For about two hours, they showcased BeachMint products that people could buy with one click.
More than 50,000 Facebook users watched the show and a "huge percentage" bought something, Berdakin said, adding, "At the time, it was the biggest day in our history in terms of sales."
Yardsellr, started in 2010 by former eBay manager Danny Leffel, organizes people into 3,000 communities, or "blocks," based on common interests. When someone posts a product for sale, it is sent to the news feeds of people in that block and purchases can be made with a few clicks.
Gross merchandise sales, a measure of the value of products, has been growing about 30 percent a month, according to Leffel. "Social commerce could be bigger than eBay," he argued.
Then there's Oodle, a start-up headed by Craig Donato, who runs Facebook's official marketplace, which boasts more than 3 million unique monthly users. When buyers and sellers post items, their Facebook identities are attached, giving users more confidence in the transactions, Donato said.
MAKING MONEY
For now, Facebook is making money mostly by selling ads to merchants trying to target potential customers. But many experts say it is a matter of time before the eight-year-old social network will ask for a cut of shopping transactions, or seek other ways to profit.
They point to Facebook's relationship with online games developer Zynga Inc as an example. Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of revenue generated from the sale of virtual goods used to play Zynga games.
Gamers pay for those virtual goods using Facebook Credits, a virtual currency that could eventually be used to buy physical goods, according to some Internet entrepreneurs.
"Facebook has a huge opportunity to monetize e-commerce," said Christian Taylor, chief executive of Payvment, a startup that operates thousands of Facebook stores. "They have the infrastructure and team to pursue that."
Others downplay the potential for Facebook Credits, saying physical goods offer much thinner profit margins than virtual products.
"The 30 percent model is great for products with near-zero cost of goods sold," said Kevin Hartz, head of ticketing start-up Eventbrite, which works closely with Facebook. "But selling a TV with thin margins, that model will just not apply."
Nevertheless, if e-commerce on Facebook takes off, many expect the social network to find a way to make money off it.
"When you build on top of a platform like Facebook, there is always the risk that the platform provider decides to change the rules later on," said Laura Valverde of Beetailer, which runs more than 3,000 stores on Facebook.
"We have seen this with Facebook Credits and games. So, once social commerce fully takes off, it will only be natural that Facebook tries to benefit one way or another from it."
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Facebook Page Metrics Upgrade To Better Measure Virality
Facebook page insights will be updated to more accurately measure the virality of your content beyond friends of fans. Here’s how the social network described this upgrade:
We’re making changes to page insights to better capture the viral, organic, and total impressions generated when you post on your page. The updates are designed to give you more insight into what happens when people engage with your page posts and share them with their friends.
If someone shares a page post, we’ll attribute impressions of those shares to impressions from the original page post. We’ll also be capturing page post impressions on an ongoing basis. Previously, if a post received impressions after 28 days, those numbers weren’t captured. The new data will be reflected in the next few days in page insights for all pages.
Impressions refer to the number of people who saw your post, a tally that is about to increase in two ways.
Before this update, Facebook only reported two degrees of impressions, meaning your fans and their friends. Now key metrics such as reach, engaged users and talking about this will extend to three degrees of separation and beyond.Facebook stopped tallying the impressions of your posts after 28 days. Now the site will continue counting them into perpetuity.
So, what does this mean? Well, your numbers are about to go way up, particularly for your most viral content. Whether or not Facebook will apply this change retroactively is important. If there’s no retroactivity, it will be impossible to determine growth and improvement of your reach at the point of change. And many will undoubtedly incorrectly connect their growth to timeline.
So we hope that all of these statistics will be recalculated retroactively, or at least go back one to three months.
Regardless, page managers will have more accurate data to work with. Despite the mounds of statistics you can export from your insights, this was a weakness that most of us never realized existed. We could measure virality to a point, but a true measure of how far your post traveled was never calculated.
Was that post shared by a large number of your fans before immediately fizzling out? Or did it pick up steam and grow with time? Now you’ll know.
Here’s hoping that Facebook adds some granularity to those statistics: How many of the shares and impressions were by your fans, and how many were done by their friends? To what degree beyond your fans did that post reach? I’d love to know, although I admit the amount of data Facebook provides is already a bit overwhelming.
We’re making changes to page insights to better capture the viral, organic, and total impressions generated when you post on your page. The updates are designed to give you more insight into what happens when people engage with your page posts and share them with their friends.
If someone shares a page post, we’ll attribute impressions of those shares to impressions from the original page post. We’ll also be capturing page post impressions on an ongoing basis. Previously, if a post received impressions after 28 days, those numbers weren’t captured. The new data will be reflected in the next few days in page insights for all pages.
Impressions refer to the number of people who saw your post, a tally that is about to increase in two ways.
Before this update, Facebook only reported two degrees of impressions, meaning your fans and their friends. Now key metrics such as reach, engaged users and talking about this will extend to three degrees of separation and beyond.Facebook stopped tallying the impressions of your posts after 28 days. Now the site will continue counting them into perpetuity.
So, what does this mean? Well, your numbers are about to go way up, particularly for your most viral content. Whether or not Facebook will apply this change retroactively is important. If there’s no retroactivity, it will be impossible to determine growth and improvement of your reach at the point of change. And many will undoubtedly incorrectly connect their growth to timeline.
So we hope that all of these statistics will be recalculated retroactively, or at least go back one to three months.
Regardless, page managers will have more accurate data to work with. Despite the mounds of statistics you can export from your insights, this was a weakness that most of us never realized existed. We could measure virality to a point, but a true measure of how far your post traveled was never calculated.
Was that post shared by a large number of your fans before immediately fizzling out? Or did it pick up steam and grow with time? Now you’ll know.
Here’s hoping that Facebook adds some granularity to those statistics: How many of the shares and impressions were by your fans, and how many were done by their friends? To what degree beyond your fans did that post reach? I’d love to know, although I admit the amount of data Facebook provides is already a bit overwhelming.
Marvel Studios' TV Ad For ‘The Avengers’ Debuts Exclusively In Facebook Game
Disney’s Marvel Studios continued its use of Facebook to promote upcoming feature film The Avengers, exclusively premiering the next television ad for the movie within Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance.
The commercial can only be viewed by Marvel: Avengers Alliance players, and those who view it will receive a gold bar, the game’s in-game currency.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance was developed by Disney’s Playdom, and Mike Rubinelli, its vice president of studio operations, said:
Marvel: Avengers Alliance has attracted more than 4 million players since it launched last month, so we believe this game is the ideal platform for reaching a large and passionate Avengers fan base.
Marvel announced earlier this week that it would offer early screenings of The Avengers in the cities that generated the most Facebook likes.
The commercial can only be viewed by Marvel: Avengers Alliance players, and those who view it will receive a gold bar, the game’s in-game currency.
Marvel: Avengers Alliance was developed by Disney’s Playdom, and Mike Rubinelli, its vice president of studio operations, said:
Marvel: Avengers Alliance has attracted more than 4 million players since it launched last month, so we believe this game is the ideal platform for reaching a large and passionate Avengers fan base.
Marvel announced earlier this week that it would offer early screenings of The Avengers in the cities that generated the most Facebook likes.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Vermont's First Social Media Election
Earlier this month, Vermont's largest city, Burlington, held a mayoral election that featured two non-incumbents vying for the top municipal job in the state. Voters went to the polls on March 6 to choose between Democrat Miro Weinberger and Republican Kurt Wright. When Weinberger won a decisive 57 percent to 37 percent victory, that ended a campaign that had run for six months and what should be described as Vermont's first social media election.
Just to be clear, other campaigns had used social media before in Vermont. And social media wasn't the only media: Classics like print and database marketing played a huge role in the campaign. No, what was different this time was the focus, engagement and the amount of activity. It's a role that will only grow over the coming years.
Social media has had a foothold in Burlington politics for three years. In early 2009, three city councilors Karen Paul (I), Nancy Kaplan (D) and Ed Adrian (D) set up Twitter accounts and started tweeting from city council meetings. It was a successful experiment. Since most of us here in town don't want to spend hours at those meetings, it gave residents a way to follow what was actually happening at these meetings from the comfort of their homes. More importantly, it gave people a chance to reach out or ask one of those councilors a question, in real time. From a democracy standpoint, it looked like a good way to increase citizen participation in municipal issues.
The act of using social media caused conflict within the city council itself. Some councilors didn't like the fact that their peers were sending social updates on their phones or computers. They felt that the social councilors were not showing proper respect to people who had actually shown up for the meetings. A number of the non-social councilors put forth a resolution banning electronics (and thus social media) from city council meetings. The resolution lost. One of sponsors of the resolution was Mayoral candidate Kurt Wright.
The mayoral social campaign started in earnest at one of the first Democratic primary debates in September 2011 when area journalists and tweeters agreed on using a singular hash tag, #btvmayor, for the campaign. What followed was a combination of reporting, campaigning, connections and tussles.
Of the six mayoral candidates (four Democrat primary contenders, one Republican, one Independent) only one had a credible presence in social media beforehand: Jason Lorber (D) who had set up and used his Twitter account as state representative (@VTJason) several years before. Once the others got into the race they, or their campaigns, quickly followed suit. For the primary months, most of the #btvmayor chatter was descriptions from the many public debates held between Democratic contenders.
Then at the Democratic caucus everything changed. The four round, single elimination primary battle between the contenders came down to the third round where, mano-a-mano, Miro Weinberger faced off with Tim Ashe. And the result was tie! The problem was that a ton of people had already left the premises, which meant that they couldn't vote in the unprecedented tie-breaking round.
Twitter and Facebook went wild. Those still in the building called out on social media, on email and on the phone to bring everyone back. Outside the building, traffic chaos ensued. In the end, the pols decided to reschedule the final round for another day. But that one, short crazy hour showed everyone that they ignored social in campaigns at their own risk.
As the two-man Weinberger/Wright campaign kicked in the social media activity ramped up (Wanda Hines was also a candidate, but she did very little campaigning, no social media work, and wound up with a very small percentage of the vote).
Weinberger's team was quick to start using and promoting its social channels. They made a big push into Facebook and used Twitter aggressively in order to dominate the #btvmayor stream. The Wright campaign jumped in too, finally setting up profiles for their candidate, although he had been an established politician on the state (representative) and local (city council) level for over a dozen years. They also started producing YouTube videos. On Twitter, the battle for hashtag dominance had begun.
The most interesting part of the #btvmayor hashtag was that it brought in people who normally weren't active or connected to the Burlington social media world. This included journalists, politically active citizen, and just regular Joes and Janes. To be clear, the political teams dominated the stream but that obscures a broader picture.
Another difference this time around was that we introduced social media as a key part to live debates. For the past three years, my organization #BTVSMB has hosted social media breakfast events here in Burlington. Now, we partnered with debate hosts to open up the social channels to increase debate participation. In the first debate we worked with the Burlington Business Association to take candidate questions from social media. In the penultimate debate, we helped the Burlington Free Press as the local paper hosted a complete social media debate where ALL of the questions came from social. That had never been done in Vermont before. I think it was the most interesting debate of the entire six-month campaign.
In the end, the candidate with the best social team won. Weinberger had surrounded himself with Internet professionals from the get-go as he realized how important online could be in his campaign. As he moved through the campaign, his staff beefed up participation from people with a strong social presence. Wright relied on a few young Web developers and interns. They faced an uphill battle online and never caught up.
Both teams desire to dominate the stream often led to pitched political battles. Most ended with personal insults and attacks. Which maybe proves the point that Twitter streams, like online message boards, are not always the best place for detailed, nuanced discussions.
What the social streams did have was the political passion and engagement that was often lacking on both the street and in the candidate debates themselves. One thing that's clear from the #btvmayor social campaign is that it did a great job in solidifying relationships within political teams. Whether it brought in any new votes is another question.
For once, though, the social media activity in the mayoral election accurately reflected the final Burlington vote tally. Perhaps that clearly points to social media moving away from early adopters and more solidly into the mainstream. At least in this little corner of Vermont.
One thing is clear though: social media as a part of major Vermont political campaigns is here to stay. And that is a very good thing.
Just to be clear, other campaigns had used social media before in Vermont. And social media wasn't the only media: Classics like print and database marketing played a huge role in the campaign. No, what was different this time was the focus, engagement and the amount of activity. It's a role that will only grow over the coming years.
Social media has had a foothold in Burlington politics for three years. In early 2009, three city councilors Karen Paul (I), Nancy Kaplan (D) and Ed Adrian (D) set up Twitter accounts and started tweeting from city council meetings. It was a successful experiment. Since most of us here in town don't want to spend hours at those meetings, it gave residents a way to follow what was actually happening at these meetings from the comfort of their homes. More importantly, it gave people a chance to reach out or ask one of those councilors a question, in real time. From a democracy standpoint, it looked like a good way to increase citizen participation in municipal issues.
The act of using social media caused conflict within the city council itself. Some councilors didn't like the fact that their peers were sending social updates on their phones or computers. They felt that the social councilors were not showing proper respect to people who had actually shown up for the meetings. A number of the non-social councilors put forth a resolution banning electronics (and thus social media) from city council meetings. The resolution lost. One of sponsors of the resolution was Mayoral candidate Kurt Wright.
The mayoral social campaign started in earnest at one of the first Democratic primary debates in September 2011 when area journalists and tweeters agreed on using a singular hash tag, #btvmayor, for the campaign. What followed was a combination of reporting, campaigning, connections and tussles.
Of the six mayoral candidates (four Democrat primary contenders, one Republican, one Independent) only one had a credible presence in social media beforehand: Jason Lorber (D) who had set up and used his Twitter account as state representative (@VTJason) several years before. Once the others got into the race they, or their campaigns, quickly followed suit. For the primary months, most of the #btvmayor chatter was descriptions from the many public debates held between Democratic contenders.
Then at the Democratic caucus everything changed. The four round, single elimination primary battle between the contenders came down to the third round where, mano-a-mano, Miro Weinberger faced off with Tim Ashe. And the result was tie! The problem was that a ton of people had already left the premises, which meant that they couldn't vote in the unprecedented tie-breaking round.
Twitter and Facebook went wild. Those still in the building called out on social media, on email and on the phone to bring everyone back. Outside the building, traffic chaos ensued. In the end, the pols decided to reschedule the final round for another day. But that one, short crazy hour showed everyone that they ignored social in campaigns at their own risk.
As the two-man Weinberger/Wright campaign kicked in the social media activity ramped up (Wanda Hines was also a candidate, but she did very little campaigning, no social media work, and wound up with a very small percentage of the vote).
Weinberger's team was quick to start using and promoting its social channels. They made a big push into Facebook and used Twitter aggressively in order to dominate the #btvmayor stream. The Wright campaign jumped in too, finally setting up profiles for their candidate, although he had been an established politician on the state (representative) and local (city council) level for over a dozen years. They also started producing YouTube videos. On Twitter, the battle for hashtag dominance had begun.
The most interesting part of the #btvmayor hashtag was that it brought in people who normally weren't active or connected to the Burlington social media world. This included journalists, politically active citizen, and just regular Joes and Janes. To be clear, the political teams dominated the stream but that obscures a broader picture.
Another difference this time around was that we introduced social media as a key part to live debates. For the past three years, my organization #BTVSMB has hosted social media breakfast events here in Burlington. Now, we partnered with debate hosts to open up the social channels to increase debate participation. In the first debate we worked with the Burlington Business Association to take candidate questions from social media. In the penultimate debate, we helped the Burlington Free Press as the local paper hosted a complete social media debate where ALL of the questions came from social. That had never been done in Vermont before. I think it was the most interesting debate of the entire six-month campaign.
In the end, the candidate with the best social team won. Weinberger had surrounded himself with Internet professionals from the get-go as he realized how important online could be in his campaign. As he moved through the campaign, his staff beefed up participation from people with a strong social presence. Wright relied on a few young Web developers and interns. They faced an uphill battle online and never caught up.
Both teams desire to dominate the stream often led to pitched political battles. Most ended with personal insults and attacks. Which maybe proves the point that Twitter streams, like online message boards, are not always the best place for detailed, nuanced discussions.
What the social streams did have was the political passion and engagement that was often lacking on both the street and in the candidate debates themselves. One thing that's clear from the #btvmayor social campaign is that it did a great job in solidifying relationships within political teams. Whether it brought in any new votes is another question.
For once, though, the social media activity in the mayoral election accurately reflected the final Burlington vote tally. Perhaps that clearly points to social media moving away from early adopters and more solidly into the mainstream. At least in this little corner of Vermont.
One thing is clear though: social media as a part of major Vermont political campaigns is here to stay. And that is a very good thing.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Easter Malware May Invade Facebook
Easter-related posts are already hitting Facebook at a rate of about once every few seconds, and that’s just the publicly visible ones. Unfortunately, the popularity of this topic has a potential dark side: malware.
Malware riffing on Easter is on the rise across the Internet, Sophos has reported, and while the security consultancy has yet to identify an outbreak on Facebook, the potential is ripe given the prevalence of posts on the topic.
Of course, Facebook’s immune systems have reduced outbreaks of malware on the social network — surely you’ve noticed fewer signs of security problems on the site, not to mention less frequent news reports about such problems.
Users of the site are also wising up to the tell-tale signs of scams, and clicking on these posts less.Hopefully, Facebook users might exercise caution before clicking on posts promising unlimited amounts of Easter chocolates. That would help keep this year’s most prevalent form of Easter malware from wreaking havoc on the social network.
Malware riffing on Easter is on the rise across the Internet, Sophos has reported, and while the security consultancy has yet to identify an outbreak on Facebook, the potential is ripe given the prevalence of posts on the topic.
Of course, Facebook’s immune systems have reduced outbreaks of malware on the social network — surely you’ve noticed fewer signs of security problems on the site, not to mention less frequent news reports about such problems.
Users of the site are also wising up to the tell-tale signs of scams, and clicking on these posts less.Hopefully, Facebook users might exercise caution before clicking on posts promising unlimited amounts of Easter chocolates. That would help keep this year’s most prevalent form of Easter malware from wreaking havoc on the social network.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Facebook App Which Auto-Responds To Birthday Posts
We already have Facebook applications that automates happy birthday postings, so why not have one that automatically thanks well-wishers?
Rather than posting a single status update to thank everyone who recognized their birthdays, Facebook users can now tap new app Say Thankyou, which automates the process of thanking Facebook friends who passed along their well wishes.
Say Thankyou asks users to confirm their birthdays, and then select how they wish to thank their friends — commenting on their birthday wishes, liking their birthday wishes, commenting and liking, or posting on their walls.
Users are then prompted to enter the message they wish to include in comments or wall posts, and they have the option of selecting which wall posts to respond to.
Rather than posting a single status update to thank everyone who recognized their birthdays, Facebook users can now tap new app Say Thankyou, which automates the process of thanking Facebook friends who passed along their well wishes.
Say Thankyou asks users to confirm their birthdays, and then select how they wish to thank their friends — commenting on their birthday wishes, liking their birthday wishes, commenting and liking, or posting on their walls.
Users are then prompted to enter the message they wish to include in comments or wall posts, and they have the option of selecting which wall posts to respond to.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Should Employees And Bosses Be Facebook Friends?
Should bosses and employees be friends on Facebook? With rules about personal and professional behavior blurring, it's a bit surprising that only 21 percent of respondents in a recent Russell Herder survey said they are Facebook friends with their work supervisors, compared to 74 percent who aren’t. Less surprising, however, is that younger workers aged 18-34 are more likely (26 percent) to be Facebook friends with the boss, compared to just 10 percent of those 35 or older. And while 44 percent of Facebook users age 55 and up think it's inappropriate to friend the boss, only 28 percent of those 18-34 agree.
Who started the relationship? Forty-six percent of those who are Facebook friends with their bosses initiated the friendship, while 38 percent say their bosses did. And here's where it gets awkward: 29 percent felt "pressured" to accept the boss's invitation.
Why it matters to your business: According to the survey, men are more likely than women to consider the Facebook relationship a "professional" as opposed to personal one. And what about legal issues? Could Facebook friendships between your employees expose you to sexual harassment charges? If you're at all worried about this, consider easing the awkwardness by creating a company Facebook page. That way, your employees can connect without feeling personally pressured.
Who started the relationship? Forty-six percent of those who are Facebook friends with their bosses initiated the friendship, while 38 percent say their bosses did. And here's where it gets awkward: 29 percent felt "pressured" to accept the boss's invitation.
Why it matters to your business: According to the survey, men are more likely than women to consider the Facebook relationship a "professional" as opposed to personal one. And what about legal issues? Could Facebook friendships between your employees expose you to sexual harassment charges? If you're at all worried about this, consider easing the awkwardness by creating a company Facebook page. That way, your employees can connect without feeling personally pressured.
Monday, April 2, 2012
People In The World Still Connects More In E-mail Than In Facebook
Most of the world is interconnected thanks to email and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.
Eighty five percent of people around the globe who are connected online send and receive emails and 62 percent communicate through social networking sites, particularly in Indonesia, Argentina and Russia, which have the highest percentage of users.
More than eight in 10 Indonesians and about 75 percent of people in Argentina, Russia and South Africa visit social media sites, the new Ipsos/Reuters poll showed.
Although Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35 percent, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey.
"Even though the number in the United States was 61 percent, the majority of Americans are using social media sites," said Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs.
The fact that more than six in 10 people worldwide use social networks and forums, she added, suggests a transformation in how people communicate with each other.
"It is true interconnection and engagement with each other. It is not just about a message back and forth but building messages across communities and only the meaningful messages stick," she explained.
"It looks like a majority of the world is communicating this way," she said, adding the numbers were more than half in almost every country polled.
Ipsos questioned a total of 19,216 adults around the world in the online survey.
Email usage was highest in Hungary, where 94 percent of people communicated online. The numbers were similar in Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Argentina and Poland.
Saudi Arabia, where 46 percent of people said they communicate via email, had the lowest usage, followed by India at 68 percent and Japan at 75 percent. In all the other countries eight or nine out of 10 people were email users.
Although Americans and Japanese are thought to be very tech savvy, voice-over IP (VOIP), audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection, were not very popular in both countries with less than 10 percent of people using the relatively new technology, compared to 36 percent in Russia, 32 percent in Turkey and 25 percent in India.
Ipsos questioned people in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.
Eighty five percent of people around the globe who are connected online send and receive emails and 62 percent communicate through social networking sites, particularly in Indonesia, Argentina and Russia, which have the highest percentage of users.
More than eight in 10 Indonesians and about 75 percent of people in Argentina, Russia and South Africa visit social media sites, the new Ipsos/Reuters poll showed.
Although Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35 percent, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey.
"Even though the number in the United States was 61 percent, the majority of Americans are using social media sites," said Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos Global Public Affairs.
The fact that more than six in 10 people worldwide use social networks and forums, she added, suggests a transformation in how people communicate with each other.
"It is true interconnection and engagement with each other. It is not just about a message back and forth but building messages across communities and only the meaningful messages stick," she explained.
"It looks like a majority of the world is communicating this way," she said, adding the numbers were more than half in almost every country polled.
Ipsos questioned a total of 19,216 adults around the world in the online survey.
Email usage was highest in Hungary, where 94 percent of people communicated online. The numbers were similar in Sweden, Belgium, Indonesia, Argentina and Poland.
Saudi Arabia, where 46 percent of people said they communicate via email, had the lowest usage, followed by India at 68 percent and Japan at 75 percent. In all the other countries eight or nine out of 10 people were email users.
Although Americans and Japanese are thought to be very tech savvy, voice-over IP (VOIP), audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection, were not very popular in both countries with less than 10 percent of people using the relatively new technology, compared to 36 percent in Russia, 32 percent in Turkey and 25 percent in India.
Ipsos questioned people in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.
Student Banned From Graduation Because Of A Facebook Bikini Photo
A Catholic school student has been banned from graduation ceremonies in the Philippines because a photo on her Facebook page shows her wearing a bikini while holding a cigarette and a liquor bottle.
Education Assistant Secretary Tonisito Umali said Wednesday the department will investigate a complaint by the girl's mother against the St. Theresa's College High School in central Cebu City to determine whether the penalty was appropriate.
The girl will graduate but has been told she cannot join her classmates in the ceremonies. Reports say school policies allegedly violated involve immorality, exposure online and smoking and drinking.
A judge is expected to rule on the complaint before Friday's graduation.
The girl's lawyer says the picture was taken during a family outing. The school declined to comment.
Education Assistant Secretary Tonisito Umali said Wednesday the department will investigate a complaint by the girl's mother against the St. Theresa's College High School in central Cebu City to determine whether the penalty was appropriate.
The girl will graduate but has been told she cannot join her classmates in the ceremonies. Reports say school policies allegedly violated involve immorality, exposure online and smoking and drinking.
A judge is expected to rule on the complaint before Friday's graduation.
The girl's lawyer says the picture was taken during a family outing. The school declined to comment.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Facebook Privacy Policy Update Causes Alarm
Facebook has taken steps in recent days to address more worries about privacy, warning employers not to ask prospective employees for their passwords and trying to clarify its user "rights and responsibilities" policies.
But the la Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the compa Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company, even though nothing substantive had changed. Their discontent showed that, no matter what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users' trust and to its growth.
"There is such an incredible level of scrutiny now about anything any company does about privacy," said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. "We are treating every single thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of all these five-alarm level outbursts is that people will become inured about privacy and miss real privacy issues because of crying wolf when nothing is actually going on."
Users' willingness to share information is a key part of Facebook's business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Last year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it's preparing for an initial public offering later this spring that could be valued at as much as $100 billion.
Privacy issues have dogged Facebook for years. It settled with the Federal Trade Commission in November over allegations that it misled users about the handling of their personal information. Google Inc., a big rival, agreed to a similar settlement eight months earlier.
The latest ruckus happened when more than 30,000 German users posted that they were rejecting the company's proposed changes to its governing documents. But the changes amounted to nuanced revisions and clarifications of long-standing policies – not a major overhaul.
The company, for instance, replaced the word "profile" with "timeline," since Facebook users now have a different type of profile. Facebook also changed "hateful" to "hate speech" in its description of prohibited content.
Still, users who read the documents for the first time noticed some things that alarmed them. For example, the document replaced the words "privacy policy" with "data-use policy," seemingly taking privacy out of the picture.
Facebook has been calling it a data-use policy since September, preferring to be more straightforward about its actual purpose. But the company makes so many subtle changes that it's easy to lose track.
"It's clear that some people fundamentally misunderstand our proposed changes. Our data-use policy governs how we use and collect data. That document is not changing at this time," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. "That's why we have this unique and transparent process, though – so have an opportunity to clarify confusion and respond to user concerns. We look forward to doing so in the coming weeks."
Another worrisome discovery might have been the fact that applications used by your Facebook friends can gain access to your data on Facebook, even if you do not use the apps yourself. That's true, but it's been true since at least 2007 and well-documented elsewhere on the site.
The attention focused on Facebook's largely cosmetic changes reflect just how closely people watch the company.
"If they reposted the same privacy policy they had, everyone would be jumping up and down," said Polonetsky, a former chief privacy officer at AOL.
Sarah Downey, senior privacy strategist at an online privacy software provider called Abine, was among those criticizing Facebook this week. She said the company is being more straightforward about its business model and what it does by clarifying its documents. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's heading in the right direction.
"What we once thought of as a social network has really become an advertising network," she said.
On Friday, it was Facebook itself that raised alarms about privacy, warning employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords to the site so they can poke around on their profiles. The company threatened legal action against applications that violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.
The company action came after The Associated Press documented cases of job applicants who were asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their online profiles.
A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it doesn't hire that person.
"As a user, you shouldn't be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job," Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer of policy, wrote in a post. "And as the friend of a user, you shouldn't have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don't know and didn't intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."
The post sparked comments from Facebook users, many of them thankful. But the number totaled only 108 – a sign that when it comes to online privacy, it's far easier to stir anger than gratitude.
But the la Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the compa Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company, even though nothing substantive had changed. Their discontent showed that, no matter what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users' trust and to its growth.
"There is such an incredible level of scrutiny now about anything any company does about privacy," said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. "We are treating every single thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of all these five-alarm level outbursts is that people will become inured about privacy and miss real privacy issues because of crying wolf when nothing is actually going on."
Users' willingness to share information is a key part of Facebook's business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Last year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it's preparing for an initial public offering later this spring that could be valued at as much as $100 billion.
Privacy issues have dogged Facebook for years. It settled with the Federal Trade Commission in November over allegations that it misled users about the handling of their personal information. Google Inc., a big rival, agreed to a similar settlement eight months earlier.
The latest ruckus happened when more than 30,000 German users posted that they were rejecting the company's proposed changes to its governing documents. But the changes amounted to nuanced revisions and clarifications of long-standing policies – not a major overhaul.
The company, for instance, replaced the word "profile" with "timeline," since Facebook users now have a different type of profile. Facebook also changed "hateful" to "hate speech" in its description of prohibited content.
Still, users who read the documents for the first time noticed some things that alarmed them. For example, the document replaced the words "privacy policy" with "data-use policy," seemingly taking privacy out of the picture.
Facebook has been calling it a data-use policy since September, preferring to be more straightforward about its actual purpose. But the company makes so many subtle changes that it's easy to lose track.
"It's clear that some people fundamentally misunderstand our proposed changes. Our data-use policy governs how we use and collect data. That document is not changing at this time," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. "That's why we have this unique and transparent process, though – so have an opportunity to clarify confusion and respond to user concerns. We look forward to doing so in the coming weeks."
Another worrisome discovery might have been the fact that applications used by your Facebook friends can gain access to your data on Facebook, even if you do not use the apps yourself. That's true, but it's been true since at least 2007 and well-documented elsewhere on the site.
The attention focused on Facebook's largely cosmetic changes reflect just how closely people watch the company.
"If they reposted the same privacy policy they had, everyone would be jumping up and down," said Polonetsky, a former chief privacy officer at AOL.
Sarah Downey, senior privacy strategist at an online privacy software provider called Abine, was among those criticizing Facebook this week. She said the company is being more straightforward about its business model and what it does by clarifying its documents. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's heading in the right direction.
"What we once thought of as a social network has really become an advertising network," she said.
On Friday, it was Facebook itself that raised alarms about privacy, warning employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords to the site so they can poke around on their profiles. The company threatened legal action against applications that violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.
The company action came after The Associated Press documented cases of job applicants who were asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their online profiles.
A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it doesn't hire that person.
"As a user, you shouldn't be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job," Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer of policy, wrote in a post. "And as the friend of a user, you shouldn't have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don't know and didn't intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."
The post sparked comments from Facebook users, many of them thankful. But the number totaled only 108 – a sign that when it comes to online privacy, it's far easier to stir anger than gratitude.
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