Earlier this week, Facebook expanded the roll-out of its facial recognition software to tag people in photos uploaded to the social networking site. Many observers and regulators responded with privacy concerns; EFF offered a video showing users how to opt-out. Tim O'Reilly, however, takes a different tack... O'Reilly's point - and face-recognition technology - is bigger than Facebook. more
At the annual Dutch "delegation" dinner at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, I voiced that it may be a good idea to start a Dutch IGF. This followed a discussion in which we discussed the possibilities of involving more people and organisations from the Netherlands in Internet governance. The, now, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation followed this thought and made it possible for the ECP/EPN foundation to start the NL IGF. more
In case you missed it a few days, a story broke that said that Facebook was caught hiring a PR firm to spread stories about Google about how they invade people's privacy... Even though I work for Microsoft and therefore can hardly be considered unbiased, I think Microsoft would be in a position to call out others for lack of privacy protection. I say this based on the fact that in my division, every new feature that we implement has to go through Privacy reviews... more
There's been a lot of media attention to a report that iPhones track your movements. It's even reached the U.S. Senate. I'm underwhelmed. I think that the threat is overhyped. What is happening is that these devices create a hidden file with your location... more
In a tweet, EU commissioner for the Information Society Neelie Kroes congratulates OPTA on the spam fine for the golf ball printing company Backsound. Since 2004 the Dutch OPTA is the number one spam and malware fighter of the EU with a total of €1.9 million in fines. It made me ask two question to myself: How come that we seldom hear of other spam fines in the EU? And can the EU change this in any way? more
Within a single month, privacy has moved to the top of the "to-do" list for government, business and consumers. In fact, the confluence of activity is the best indication in the last ten years that the will exists to establish regulatory and self-governance programs that complement consumer protection. Privacy is a growth market. more
A few days ago, CAUCE published a blog post entitled "Epsilon Interactive breach the Fukushima of the Email Industry" on our site, and the always-excellent CircleID. A small coterie of commenters was upset by the hyperbolic nature of the headline. Fair enough, an analogy usually has a high degree of probability that it will fail, and clearly, no one has died as a result of the release of what appears to be tens of millions of people's names and email addresses. But, the two situations are analogous in many other ways, and here's why. more
A series of attacks on the Email Service Provider (ESP) community began in late 2009. The criminals spear-phish their way into these companies that provide out-sourced mailing infrastructure to their clients, who are companies of all types and sizes. ... On March 30, the Epsilon Interactive division of Alliance Data Marketing (ADS on NASDAQ) suffered a massive breach that upped the ante, substantially. Email lists of at least eight financial institutions were stolen. more
In her blog EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes blogs on her stance on cloud computing. In short: this is a good development which the EU will embrace and advocate, but may need regulation in order to ensure a safe environment for industry and individuals in the cloud. Here's some thoughts on that. more
WHOIS issues are looming large for the ICANN meeting next week, starting with an all-day WHOIS Policy Review on Sunday (background). WHOIS is a subject that has been the recent topic of a number of issues including a debacle over potentially disclosing the identities of compliance reporters to spammers and criminal domainers. more
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