Friday, December 07, 2007

How do we duck the questions? Let us count the ways ...

WSJ.com’s Kara Swisher maintains her poise in this interview with Facebook’s Owen Van Natta. If you listen, ear cocked for answers that fail to address the question asked, the interview is both enlightening and amusing:

interview

I was regrettably humorless in my response to Steve Outing's smiling introduction to the same video.

He offered a emoticon, for heaven's sake, and I still didn't get it.

But you do, I am sure.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

When does an online space come of age?

When a wedding party is held there. Or, more precisely, a wedding flashprenuptial party.

Apology not accepted: Facebook still harvesting data

Apologies notwithstanding, Facebook user privacy remains at risk.

Facebook user data is still silently collected at Facebook-affiliated sites, even if the user is logged out, and still sent back to Facebook.

Facebook says very little is collected, and for users that are not logged in all data thus collected is deleted from their servers. They specifically assert:

When a Facebook user takes a Beacon-enabled action on a participating site, information is sent to Facebook in order for Facebook to operate Beacon technologically. If a Facebook user clicks "No Thanks" on the affiliate site notification, Facebook does not use the data and deletes it from its servers. Separately, before Facebook can determine whether the user is logged in, some data may be transferred from the participating site to Facebook. In those cases, Facebook does not associate the information with any individual user account, and deletes the data as well.

That information is visible if you click on and thus expand item seven in their "Help" section under Actions from External Websites.

The ca.com Advisor Research Blog which has done the most to clarify what Facebook is actually doing is very clear in its response:

First, there is no change in the data being sent to Facebook unbeknownst to the average user. Data is sent silently from affiliate sites and with no indication to the user at time of transmission - whether users are logged in, logged out, or have never even opened an account with Facebook. In the case of users of affiliate sites who do not have a Facebook account, the data is effectively anonymous, but for many Facebook users the data comes with their Facebook user ID, allowing it to be tied directly to their account. The newly offered global opt-out does not prevent this data's being sent to Facebook.

Note please that data is collected, even if you are not a Facebook user.

Forgive me if being "effectively anonymous" is cold comfort now.

It should be less so for Facebook users, who as I wrote still had no binding commitment from Facebook to discard inappropriately collected data.

In my view, that leaves their privacy and security at risk.

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Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 13.71

Flesch Reading Ease Level: 38.47


Calculated by Flesh

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Flesh -- Easy-To-Use Readability Calculator

Flesh icon

To improve the readability of my prose and grow my audience, I have begun to make regular use of Flesh.

I have written about Flesh in detail here.


I'll be posting the two Flesh-generated scores for every post I write that is long enough to permit accurate calculation of them.

Try it for a week or two and let me know what you think.