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Facecrook! Privacy Lawsuit an Initial Public Offing?

Class-action lawsuit could affect Class A stock

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Just Don’t “Duets”

Not stealth marketing – just stinks

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The Face(book) of Online Privacy’s Future

Facebook is just getting started mining your data

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Dr. Ads Does the Cher-ing Thing

Dr. Ads is a Wild-mon

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Consumers Union Goes Public Over Facebook’s Privacy Violations

Getting in your Facebook

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Facecrook! Privacy Lawsuit an Initial Public Offing?Just Don’t “Duets”The Face(book) of Online Privacy’s FutureDr. Ads Does the Cher-ing ThingConsumers Union Goes Public Over Facebook’s Privacy Violations

May
20

Facecrook! Privacy Lawsuit an Initial Public Offing?

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Right before Facebook launched its ballyhooed but disappointing Initial Public Offering (IPO), the social media behemoth got whacked with a behemoth class-action suit over its privacy practices.

 

Via The Telegraph:

 

Facebook hit with $15bn privacy lawsuit ahead of stock market debut

The company is being sued for $15bn – almost as much as the $16bn raised in its record breaking initial public offering – for tracking users against their wishes, even after they have logged out of their Facebook accounts.

The lawsuit, filed [Friday] in a Federal Court in San Jose, California, combines 21 separate cases across the US and could have far-reaching ramifications for the social network at a critical time.

 

The  Sneak ADtackniks aren’t saying this lawsuit caused Facebook’s anemic opening stock performance, but given GM’s junked Facebook ad campaign – along with critical comments from marketing executives (Telegraph: “Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the world’s biggest advertising group, WPP, has said he has ‘fundamental’ doubts over whether Facebook provides the right ‘context’ for ads”) – you have to wonder if the current climate is the right “context” for an IPO.

 

As in, Individual Privacy Offender.

 

 

 

 

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May
13

Just Don’t “Duets”

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The new ABC show Duets is currently running this promo, a takeoff on Apple’s classic 1984 spot:

If that’s any indication of the show’s quality, the Sneak ADtackniks predict it’ll go over like the metric system.

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May
08

The Face(book) of Online Privacy’s Future

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The big Mark Zuckerberg takeout in New York magazine is getting lots of attention, but even more interesting (for Sneak ADtacknauts) is this sidebar, headlined “No, Facebook Has Not Already Peaked.”

 

Nut graf:

 

There’s a technology called OAuth. When you go to Spotify, or comment on many big websites, or rate a movie on Netflix, you are usually given the option to connect with your Facebook I.D. This works well because people hate maintaining separate user names and passwords; our brains just can’t deal. The catch is that now you’re logged into Facebook’s network, and will probably stay that way, even if you never again go to facebook.com.

 

Any company can provide an OAuth service. It’s just that Facebook has the most users. And now Facebook knows how many of them are logging in to any site that uses an updated version of OAuth. (I mean, I have no inside track on how they use the data, but how could you not look?) Facebook also has a CEO concerned about rivals usurping it. If you had a huge pile of data about websites and services that might pose a competitive threat and billions of dollars in cash at hand, what would you do? Right: You’d buy Instagram. And you’d be able to make a very informed decision without consulting anyone, because, well, math.

 

So what’s happening is that Facebook has an extraordinary window into the activities of other up-and-coming social networks and other competitors. (The same is true for Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Foursquare; it’s just that Facebook has a much bigger window.) With its remarkable war chest, it can endeavor to buy even more of our time and data than it owns today.


 

In other words, Facebook has its tentacles in an unending series of social sites, which it can either purchase or just datasuck at will.

 

Conclusion:

 

Peak Facebook, when it does arrive, is something that Facebook-haters should fear, not welcome. Facebook’s platform has been so overwhelmingly successful that the company hardly had time to do anything but grow. Yet when the growth of the network itself slows, as it too inevitably will, Facebook—as a publicly traded leviathan whose mandate is to increase profits—will need to find new ways of slicing and dicing humanity into groups that will respond to marketing. That’s what lurks on the other side of peak Facebook, and it is going to suck.

 

Make that, datasuck.

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May
07

Dr. Ads Does the Cher-ing Thing

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May
04

Consumers Union Goes Public Over Facebook’s Privacy Violations

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Advertising Age reports that Consumers Union has run a full-page ad in Politico blasting Facebook’s privacy policy.

 

Consumers Union Blasts Facebook in Full-Page Ad

 

Consumers Union took out a full-page ad in Politico today bashing Facebook’s privacy policies–or lack thereof. While the ad copy seems written to an average consumer, its placement in Politico is obviously an attempt to catch the eye of politicians.

 

The ad:

 

 

The text:

 

“Facebook and its users have a special relationship — one that makes the Web a more fun and social place. But Facebook has been keeping track of practically everything you’ve ever done on their site — and lots of other sites — and will only share some of that with you. Now they support allowing the government broad access to your records. Meanwhile, a national survey by Consumer Reports projected that nearly 13 million U.S. Facebook users have never set privacy controls — an essential step in using the biggest social network safely. Facebook should think twice about how it shares your private information … and so should you.”

 

The ad directs readers to hearusnow.org, which urges readers to “Tell Facebook to strengthen privacy!”

 

With Facebook about to go public, could privacy issues queer the deal?

 

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May
01

What We Need Is a “Do Not Trick” Law

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NPR’s All Things Considered ran a piece yesterday about negotiations among U.S. technology companies to protect consumer privacy on the Internet, with a special eye toward European standards:

 

America’s big technology companies are negotiating the details of a new privacy system called “Do Not Track,” to let people shield their personal data on websites. There’s no deal yet, but people inside the talks say the main reason American companies are even considering “Do Not Track” is the pressure they’re feeling from Europe . . .

Not only should people be allowed to block websites from collecting and keeping their data, [a European privacy regulator] says, but that should be the default setting — on European browsers, at least.

 

Tell that to the U.S. House of Representatives, which just passed proposed legislation (code name CISPA) that “would increase the information that is shared between government and technology companies, giving each protection to share confidential information with one another in the interest of warding off cyberthreats.”

 

Can you say “working at cross-purposes”?

 

I knew you could.

 

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Apr
29

How Do You Like Your Online Privacy: Regular or Extra-CISPA?

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The U.S. House of Representatives has just tried to take a bite out of your online privacy (via ABC News):

 

CISPA: Cybersecurity Bill May Pit Online Safety Against Privacy

 

While all the focus was on SOPA and PIPA, the so-called Internet piracy bills in Congress, there’s a new piece of technology-related legislation that may prove to be just as controversial. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, passed the U.S. House of Representatives late Thursday, and now heads to the Senate.

If enacted, it would increase the information that is shared between the government and technology companies, giving each protection to share confidential information with one another in the interest of warding off cyberthreats.

Previously, this hasn’t been the case — government information was classified and companies feared violating antitrust laws.

 

Truth is, the bill will have trouble getting through the Senate, and even if it does, Pres. Obama has promised to veto it.

 

Regardless, the left has contracted a full-blown case of the high-sterics:

 

Congress is on the cusp of passing a new bill that could threaten any internet user’s civil liberties. The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a digital equivalent of allowing the government to fight perceived threats by monitoring which books citizens check out from the library, passed the House yesterday and will now be taken up by the Senate.

Online advocates, fresh off their victory against the Stop Online Piracy Act, are now gearing up to oppose CISPA because of the disastrous effect the bill could have for private information on the internet. The bill’s opponents argue that it goes too far in the name of cybersecurity, endangering citizens’ personal online information by giving the government access to anything from users’ private emails to their browsing history.

 

File under: CISPA-boom-bah.

 

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Apr
27

Cookies ‘n’ Milking Data

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From Politico’s Playbook:

 

FIRST LOOK – “Hill+Knowlton Strategies Launches Influence Point … Hill+Knowlton Strategies [today will launch] a new service called Influence Point … With H+K Influence Point, companies can serve online ads directly to individuals identified as influencers. H+K’s combined research and digital teams have developed a proprietary methodology for identifying universes of financial, media and political influencers. These audiences can then be served display, video and mobile ads. This allows companies to dramatically decrease wasteful spending on large online ad buys targeted at specific audiences, even on the most accredited news sites.

 

The tipsheet then offers a helpful “How It Works” translation:

 

The cookie-based system uses a proprietary algorithm, combined with consumer data, to narrow the number of people who likely influence public policy, would be inclined to buy a financial product, or who work in media. Factors include demography (age, household income), geography (urban, D.C.), and purchasing habits. It’s a corporate application of micro-targeting techniques pioneered by presidential campaigns.

 

H+K provides a slicker, more opaque take here. And Mark McKinnon, “a seasoned political advisor and global vice chair of Hill+Knowlton Strategies,” gilds the lily for The Street:

 

“H+K Influence Point fundamentally shifts how you run influencer-driven campaigns. We can now tailor targeting to the individuals you are trying to reach – creating more efficient advertising that finds the critical super-nodes in our real life social-networks.”

 

Critical super-nodes, eh? Sounds like something they oughta get removed.

 

The bigger issue, though, is how all those big shots will feel about being algorithmed and data-mined this way.

 

Let’s see, in other words, how the influencers like being influenced.

 

 

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Apr
08

Hey, FaceShnook: You’re Being Pixel-Pocketed!

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The latest installment in the Wall Street Journal’s invaluable (and Pulitzer Prize-worthy) What They Know series is a wake-up call for every one of the 800 million+ Facebookniks.

 

Selling You on Facebook

Many popular Facebook apps are obtaining sensitive information about users—and users’ friends—so don’t be surprised if details about your religious, political and even sexual preferences start popping up in unexpected places.

 

Not so long ago, there was a familiar product called software. It was sold in stores, in shrink-wrapped boxes. When you bought it, all that you gave away was your credit card number or a stack of bills.

Now there are “apps”—stylish, discrete chunks of software that live online or in your smartphone. To “buy” an app, all you have to do is click a button. Sometimes they cost a few dollars, but many apps are free, at least in monetary terms. You often pay in another way. Apps are gateways, and when you buy an app, there is a strong chance that you are supplying its developers with one of the most coveted commodities in today’s economy: personal data.

 

Nut graf:

 

This appetite for personal data reflects a fundamental truth about Facebook and, by extension, the Internet economy as a whole: Facebook provides a free service that users pay for, in effect, by providing details about their lives, friendships, interests and activities. Facebook, in turn, uses that trove of information to attract advertisers, app makers and other business opportunities.

 

In other words: Facebook is the marketer. You are the product.

 

Get used to it.

 

 

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Mar
23

Twitterati: Sponsored Tweets Out of Character

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The Boston Herald has bad news today for the Twitterverse:

Bitter over Twitter ads

Twitter has rolled out a new advertising platform that disguises promotional tweets within the normal stream and risks major backlash from users.

“Because it’s really short-form, a lot of people have grown to view Twitter as an essential form of fast communication,” Carl Howe, vice president at the Hub-based Yankee Group, told the Herald. “Ads make this an essential form of slow communication. It ends up polluting the well.”

 

Here’s an example that Sneak ADtack! management received a short while ago:

 

 

By itself, no big deal, right? But undoubtedly annoying in numbers.

 

According to the Herald piece, though, sponsored tweets are a life-and-death matter:

 

The beauty of Twitter was that they hadn’t turned into Facebook,” [Yankee Group's] Howe said, referring to the increased number of ads within the social network.

He noted that the purity of communication on Twitter was even credited for the political uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring.

“Nobody would have wanted to see a protester get shot because they were busy swiping away a promoted tweet,” Howe said. “That’s what happens when you add noise to essential communication.”

 

Seriously? Shot while swiping? Come back to earth, Mr. Howe.

 

 

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