Privacy Revisited: A Standard Information Sharing Label

I Agreed To What?!? — Image in the article quoted

We all are very familiar with nutrition labels on milk bottles and groceries. They disclose to us that water has 0% fat and that the burger you are heating in the microwave contains 70%fat and some interesting chemicals.

But when it comes to privacy considerations of web services we are on our own.

Until now.

Joe Andrieu wants to change this. A standardized web site “health label” could help you out of the current situation. As he writes in A Standard Information Sharing Label by Joe Andrieu — Kickstarter (with video),

“Did you know that Google keeps your Searches forever? (Only “anonymizing” them if you stop using Google for at least 18 months!)

“Did you know that Facebook automatically shares your information with Bing, Pandora, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes, Clicker, Scribd, and Docs, unless you manually opt-out?

“Did you know … that YOU AGREED to this?

“Most of use have no idea what Terms of Service we agree to when we started using our favorite websites. (Remember that little box that you checked as you signed up?)

“If we actually read all the Terms of Service we allegedly agree to, it would take as many as 300 hours per year (or nearly 7.5 weeks of full-time work).

“There should be an easy, fair way for us, as consumers, to check the details of how OUR data will be used… right when we sign up.

“Instead of burying the details in huge “Terms of Use and Privacy Policies,” there should be a short, simple Label that explains who will get our data and what they will do with it.

“Here it is!   The Standard Information Sharing Label.

“(It’s like a USDA Nutrition Facts label for personal information that users will share with companies):”

A Standard Information Sharing Label by Joe Andrieu — Kickstarter

In my opinion this would really make it easier to decide at which web sites we confidently can enter personal information and which ones we should avoid.

What do you think is the Web ready for such a label? Seems we are not since the authors could not get the requested funding on Kickstarter. But someone should take this idea up get wide support and help Joe to realize his (and our) dream.

Related articles

• Standard Information Sharing Labels (windley.com)
• Support Standard Information Sharing Labels (equalsdrummond.name)
• Privacy labels aim to control prying eyes, personal data (zdnet.com)
• A way to see what you get (blogs.law.harvard.edu)
• It all starts with sharing… (joeandrieu.com)
• Badges for the Standard Label Kickstarter (joeandrieu.com)
• Survey: Facebook, Google privacy policies are incomprehensible (zdnet.com)
• They sell your privacy! We don’t know who they are! (tektab.com)

Internet And Smartphone Addiction

Internet Addiction (Photo credit: Remolacha.net pics)

After posting my article on the IT’s Seven Worst Addictions (And How To Cure Them), I came across a posting on coupons.org where they expand on “Online Junkies and Brain Shrinkage: The Rise of Internet Addiction.”

For my readers’ convenience I include the infographic from their website below this article.

But worse might be the Smartphone addiction. Because we have it with us all the time. And it is difficult not to react to all the tweets and updates from your friends and circles. Reports say that some are even leave the phone on at night not to miss anything.

Ten Preventable Social Marketing Mistakes

Terri Seymour ponders about 10 Preventable Social Marketing Mistakes. She writes:

The shadows of your mistakes will follow you. Image by Steve-h via Flickr

Social media have made a profound impact on the way businesses market their products and services. Did you think Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t last when they first came out?

Many of us did but boy were we wrong! Social media have taken most of the world by storm and if you own a business you definitely need to incorporate social media marketing in to your business plans.

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn have grown faster than radio or television! Social media has made such a big impact on business more than 70% of companies now have a Facebook page.

My Top 5 Social Networking Sites For Business

Social Media in the Enterprise (c) by the author

Michel Ruggaber (@miruggaber) pointed me to a useful article discussing Social Media sites for business:
Top 10 Social Networking Sites For Business (Social Networking Marketing Stress Relief)

I don’t necessarily agree with the entire list but do agree with the top five. I am quoting the top five from the article (my remarks in Italics):

(begin quote)

Social Media Revolution 2011 (Video)

Some amazing facts on Social Media—and many companies still think they don’t have to deal with Social Media. That Social Media are only for kids…

I saw the link to this video on Michael Neuwerth’s Social Media Zeitung following a link in a post by Michel Ruggaber (@miruggaber) on LinkedIn.

The video was produced by Erik Qualman (http://www.socialnomics.net).

Related articles

• 5 Social Video Marketing Tips with Socialnomics’ Digital Leader: Erik Qualman (reelseo.com)
• What is Socialnomics? (drdianehamilton.wordpress.com)
• Review of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business (thewakemanagency.com)
• 60 seconds in social media [infographic] (gabrielcatalano.com)

If Zuckerberg Deleted Facebook: Social Networks – Can We Survive Without Them?

Image at blaugh.com

In many previous postings I have been pondering on the importance of Social Media for business and how it will change our cooperation. Today I would like to discuss our dependence on such technologies:

I still remember the days in the mid-80′s when email addresses were written with exclamation marks and you had to know the path through the servers for the mail to arrive. E-mail was a “nice to have” gadget and nobody entrusted important information to it. All the “real” company and external information came per paper mail.

These days passed more quickly than I anticipated. It was in the late 90′s when a pharmaceutical company in my town had to send the employees home after an email outage. It had taken a mere 10 years for email to become an indispensable business tool.

If Facebook or Twitter would be down today there might not be a big stir in the business community except for the guys from the marketing department but in a few years a Social Media outage could very well bring business to a grinding halt.

Certainly if a blog site would go down we would feel the pain. Maybe not immediately but after a day or two. A Twitter outage could very well lead to more severe withdrawal symptoms.

Ten Sloppy Social Media Mistakes to Fix NOW

Corey Eridon has some advice on mistakes to avoid and she warns not to be sloppy about Social Media. She writes in her blog on hubspot.com:

“What makes the following social media mistakes particularly sloppy is that they cost little time and no money to fix, have tremendous returns, and as such are huge misses to your overall social media strategy. Stop being sloppy, and make sure you’re not making any of these 10 social media mistakes (+1 for good luck).”

How to Back Up Your Social Media Accounts

Image at http://www.glasbergen.com

Now that we learned to make the occasional backup of the files on our computers using external hard disks and — the audacious ones among us — using cloud services (BTW: check out Wuala for backup. Files get encrypted on your machine and will be packet-distributed to their storage computers. Like DropBox, just safer) here comes the next backup pattern: Backing up your Social Media.

Lou Dubois (@lou_dubois) explains in Inc.com:

The Six Best Free Facebook Apps For Businesses

Tweeting means business--not only for birds (Image by Steve-h via Flickr)

Jesse Stanchak published a blog on The 6 best free Facebook apps for businesses.

He mentions some of the better free applications out there. Quoted from the posting:

“Note — I’ve purposely left out custom development apps, e-commerce apps and coupon/contest apps. Those will have to wait for their own posts.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+: Making Social Media Measurable

Tools für Facebook, Twitter, Google+: Social Media messbar machen – computerwoche.de.

Source: SocialAmerican.com

Companies use social media as marketing tools. But who wants to measure their success, needs management and monitoring tools.

Many companies have begun to use Social Media. They serve not only as an internal communication platform, but also as marketing, advertising and sales tools. According to the U.S. consulting and market research group Altimeter Group in 2014, about 90 percent of all businesses in North America and Western Europe will use tools or software suites for managing social media activities and success control (monitoring).

Read the original article in German or the Google Translation into (a sort of) English

Related articles

• Web 2.0 Expo: Social Media Measurement Expert Tips (informationweek.com)
• CrowdControlHQ Becomes the First Social Media Monitoring Tool to Integrate Google+ (prweb.com)
• Common Mistakes of Measuring Social Media Success

“Facebook Light” For Elderly, Dementia Patients

Astrid Næsgård is 79 years and is familiar with the Internet as a communication channel. To the left SINTEF researcher Kristine Holbø. (Photo: Thor Nielsen). From: http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2011/september/297432

Quoted from: “Facebook Light” For Elderly, Dementia Patients in Works (emaxhealth.com)

“Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg probably never had this in mind when he came up with the phenomenally popular social network, but researchers are developing a type of “Facebook Light” for the elderly and people who have dementia. This approach will provide these individuals with a new way to maintain social contact and a better quality of life.

Good Article: The History and Evolution of Social Media

The History and Evolution of Social Media | Webdesigner Depot.

The Maze of Social Media (picture from the article)

“Social media has become an integral part of modern society.

• There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries.
• There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there.
• There are sites to share photos, videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends.
• It seems there are social solutions to just about every need.”

In this article, Cameron Chapman reviews the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day.

What Happens To Your Social Network Profiles When You Die?

Source: static.arstechnica.net

Recently a good friend and business colleague of mine passed away following a heart attack. Help came for him too late.

He was only in his 40′s. We were all very saddened by his sudden death having lost a close friend and colleague.

To my big dismay his profile is still on LinkedIn.com. I had written several times to the company but his profile is still alive.

This made me think that we have no accepted procedures to deal with social media profiles, email accounts etc. when someone dies. It should become a simple, secure and (for relatives and friends) easy to follow chain of steps to either delete accounts or mark them as memorialized.

Since I was sure that I would not be the first to stumble upon this issue I spent a few hours on researching the subject. There are quite a number of memorial sites (virtual cemeteries) where people can post obituaries but this does not solve the issue described above. I found some articles discussing the issue. I am enclosing some quotes from these articles.

Social Media in the Enterprise – Blessing or Curse?

Image via Wikipedia

Soziale Medien im Unternehmen — Fluch oder Segen? – Netzwoche.

I wrote an article for Experton Group on Social Media in the enterprise. Above the link to the article in German (netzwoche.ch); the English translation of the article is below (as provided by the Experton Group).

As is often the case with the emergence of new technologies, the first thing you hear about are heated discussions about related concerns. It seems it runs in our blood to first see the risks and lose sight of related opportunities and positive developments. How do things stand with the Web 2.0-based social media that are about to enter the business arena?