Center for Digital Democracy

Facebook’s New Privacy Settings an Improvement Over the Old–Which Isn’t Saying Much

John Paczkowski in Social on May 26, 2010 at 4:20 pm PT

Announcing Facebook’s newest set of privacy controls this morning, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We are really going to try to not have another backlash.” If backlash is the metric for evaluating the company’s approach to member privacy, it seems to have done okay, at least at this early juncture. Within hours of Facebook’s announcement of new privacy controls, four of its most outspoken critics weighed in on them. And all had positive things to say.

Next Step in the Facebook Privacy Blowback: The FTC Complaint. The Real Question: Will Advertisers Care?

Peter Kafka in Media on December 17, 2009 at 12:03 pm PT

The inevitable filing from privacy groups asks the Feds to force Facebook to roll back its “privacy” settings. No idea if that will work. But if the clamor gets loud enough, it might reach the ears of people who really matter: Marketers who pay to reach the site’s users.

MicroHoo Answers Some Deal Questions for Critic: A Q&A!

Kara Swisher in News on October 8, 2009 at 1:20 pm PT

Yesterday, BoomTown wrote about the status of the regulatory investigation for the Microsoft-Yahoo search and online advertising pact, which most expect to get approved. One of the few vocal critics of the deal, though, is Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a public interest group, who lobbed MicroHoo some important questions. Here are the answers.

Yahoo-Microsoft Regulatory Filings Start This Week: Let the Legal Game-Playing Begin!

Kara Swisher in News on August 4, 2009 at 3:01 am PT

After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together. That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work. According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

Chrome OS, Huh? Will It Be Based on a Google Analytics Kernel?

John Paczkowski in News on July 8, 2009 at 7:35 am PT

So Google has finally copped to developing an operating system–Chrome OS, a software platform “created for people who spend most of their time on the Web, and…designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.” It is an extraordinary market play. And an unsettling one. For it seeks to place Google, which already collects vast amounts of data about our Internet use, at the very center of our information experience. The privacy implications of that are, of course, horrendous.