Group: Mt -34 Student : Normamatova Sevara Handout 4

Group: Mt -34

Student : Normamatova Sevara

Handout 4

Match each company with the information given about them.

NB: Any letter may be used more than once.

A Google

B Apple

C Twitter

D Facebook
1..Apple . . is planning to make it easier for users to keep information private.

2. Google. . . said that it had been collecting information by accident.

3.. .Twitter . is being forced to pay a considerable financial penalty.

4..Facebook . . is required to be regularly monitored by an outside organisation.

5. Twitter. . . argued that security breaches had no serious effects.

6. . Apple.. must Let its users know what information it is collecting.

7. . Facebook. . has been accused of facilitating online crime.

8.. .Google . must keep the data it has collected until otherwise notified.

Who Owns Your Personal Data?

Kris Sangani

Attracting users to social networking sites and cloud computing sites is all about building trust.However, if recent news is anything to go by, consumers would be right to consider that thetrust they have put into the internet companies that run these services has been betrayed.In recent months, it seems that not a day has gone by without another revelation that theprivate and personal data, the currency of these websites, has been compromised, misused orsurreptitiously collected without the owner of the data's permission.

Between 2006 and th$ oeginning of 201 O,' search engine giant Google started a project tomap and digitally photograph every road in every major city in more than 30 countries for itsproduct Google Streetview. This soon became a hate symbol among privacy and civil rightsadvocates, who claimed that Google were pushing the envelope on what type of information youcould collect and publish on the Internet. But images, it appears, is not all that the Streetviewcars .collected. It now turns out that Google collected over 600 gigabytes of data from users ofpublic and unprotected Wi-Fi access routers ;... which included Web pages visited and emails.

All this only came to light when German data privacy regulators investigated Google'sStreetview project - and Google had to admit to collecting the data - although the companyclaimed they were not aware of their own data collection activities until the request wasreceived and that none of this data was used in Google's search engine or other services.Google has said it will not destroy the data until permitted by regulators.

Even consumer tech companies such as Apple cannot escape criticism from the eagle-eyedGerman regulators. Apple must immediately 'make clear' what data it collects from users ofits products and for what purposes, Germany's justice minister was quoted as saying by DerSpiegel magazine. 'Users of iPhones and other GPS devices must be aware of what kind ofinformation is being collected,' Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told the German weekly. The minister's criticism was aimed at changes Apple has made in its privacy policy wherebythe company can collect data on the geographic location of its users - albeit anonymously.Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she expected Apple to 'open its databases to Germandata protection authorities' and clarify what data it was collecting and how long it was savingthe data. T he justice minister said it would be 'unthinkable' for Apple to create personality- oruser-based profiles. 'Apple has the obligation to propedy implement the transparency so oftenpromised by [CEO] Steve Jobs,' she said.

Microblogging service Twitter recently agreed to a settlement with the US Federal TradeCommission over charges it put its customers' privacy at risk by failing to safeguard theirpersonal information. T his agreement stems from a series of attacks last year on Twitter, theservice that lets people send short messages to groups of followers. Lapses in Twitter's securityallowed hackers to send out fake tweets pretending to be from US President Barack Obamaand Fox News. Hackers also managed to take administrative control of Twitter and gain accessto private tweets, or messages. Between January and May 2009, hackers were 'able to viewnon-public user information, gain access to direct messages and protected tweets, and resetany user's password' and send tweets from any user account, according to the original FTCcomplaint. Twitter acknowledged 45 accounts were accessed by hackers in January last yearand 10 in April 2009 'for short periods of time' . Twitter claims the January attack resulted in'unauthorized joke tweets' from nine accounts.

But the company also admitted that the hackersmay also have accessed data such as email addresses and phone numbers. In April, whenanother incident occurred, Twitter claims to have cut off the hacker's administrative accesswithin 18 minutes of the attack and quickly informed affected users. Under the terms of thesettlement, Twitter will be barred for 20 years from 'misleading consumers about the extent towhich it maintains and protects the security; privacy, and confidentiality of non-public consumerinformation'. Twitter must also establish a comprehensive security program that 'will beassessed by a third party every year for ten years' , according to the FTC.But most criticism surrounding data privacy is currently reserved for Facebook, whichhas faced the wrath of a consumer backlash when millions of users suddenly found theirprivate details exposed and searchable on Google, Bing and Yahoo. Facebook, whoseprivacy policies have come under attack both at home and abroad, now faces a stiff fine fromGermany's Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information for storing

non-users' personal data without their permission. T he issue came to the fore in recent monthsamid criticisms that Facebook's confusing privacy settings were making it possible for Internetstalkers, cyber criminals and even nosy neighbours to gain a wealth of information about itsusers without their knowledge or permission. Facebook has now started to roll out changesthat would give users more powerful tools to prevent personal information being accessed byothers. For instance, Facebook will allow users to block all third parties from accessing their

information without their explicit permission. It will also make less information available in itsuser directory and reduce the number of settings required to make all information private fromnearly 50 to less than 15.

The back tracking by internet companies on how they use our private data has

demonstrated that they cannot take our trust for granted. If social networking becomesincreasingly important to companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, they will have to becareful not to violate their users' trust in the future.