Understanding how we construct and manage our online reputations is crucial in our understanding of how people determine what to make public and what to keep private in online environments. The interview below, with Firefox's Creative Director Aza Raskin, has some interesting observations on what the construction of identity and memories could look like in the future. Also, around 4:35, he talks about the work Mozilla has been doing to create a set of privacy icons in the style of Creative Commons licences to help people understand how their data is being collected and used.
The decision whether to undergo genetic testing is often highly personal and is usually prompted by a serious medical concern such as a family history of an inherited disease. Traditionally, such testing has been done in a medical setting by health care professionals, including genetic counsellors, who explain the science and ethics behind testing and help patients interpret the results.
Loyalty discounts, the power of recommendations, serendipitous encounters with friends and colleagues, recognition badges, and stalkers. I think that’s a fair summary of most commentary about the growth of location-enabled services and tools.
In a move to monitor inventory in its stores, Wal-Mart will launch an item-level Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) inventory tracking program starting August 1st, 2010. In its first phase, the system will track individual pairs of jeans, socks and underwear. The items will be tagged with removable RFID tags that can be read from a distance using hand-held scanners so employees will know what sizes are missing from shelves and what is in the stock room, all in a matter of seconds. If the program is successful, it will be rolled out at Wal-Mart’s more than 3750 U.S. stores with more products.
On June 21, 2010, The Office of the Privacy Commissioner hosted its third Consumer Privacy Consultation event of the year. Located in Calgary, this consultation event focused primarily on the privacy implications of cloud computing. Featuring a wide variety of industry experts and engaging panelists, the event was highly successful.
Do you know how your location information is used? A recent survey commissioned by security company, Webroot, asked 1,645 social network users in the U.S. and UK who own location-enabled mobile devices about their use of location-based tools and services. The survey found that 39 percent of respondents reported using geo-location on their mobile devices and more than half (55 percent) of those users are worried about their loss of privacy.
