Last week Google announced their new privacy policy to the world. The changes in the way that Google combines and uses information one shares with its services is effective in less than a month, on March the 1st. There is a few absolutely basic facts that every Internet user (be it a Google ID user or not) should be aware of in the context of the change, and I will try to brief them here. I would love to learn and understand how exactly non-profit organizations will be affected by the new policy -- I understand that this is a very complex issue, and it is still hard to distill how this situation will be different and unique for the civil sector in particular. It doesn’t make the questions any less important or urging for an answer though. The new Google Privacy Policy run about 10,000 words, and I strongly recommend the read.

Starting March 1st any information that Google engines tracked so far, and used for customizing a specific tool of your use (e.g. you must have noted the search results being differently positioned based on how you used the engine before) will be now available almost across the entire spectrum of Google products: “If you're signed in, we may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services (...). In short, we'll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”-- Google's director of privacy, product and engineering, Alma Whitten wrote in a blog post. 

Facilitated by the knowledgeable and engaging Wendy Grossman and Javier Ruiz, the NetSquared London Meetup on Data Privacy surfaced some important, useful and informative discussion. One thing that was made clear is that there is a lot that the average person and nonprofit is unaware of on this issue. There is also a lot that those who are familiar with the issues (including those involved in the use of data for good) are struggling to address. Data privacy goes beyond the big players to middlemen, and beyond the lone hacker to organised crime. It is being driven by commercialism and government interests and laws are failing to keep up.  We discussed the importance of identifying your threat threshold as each person and organisation depending on their activities, interests and level of obscurity may require a different approach to data privacy.

Google Web History is a service that stores your Google searches and the results you clicked on. This can be helpful if you can’t find a site anymore which you found useful earlier.

What Google Web History is not supposed to do is to continue to log searches from a computer that you haven’t been using in months! But that is exactly what has been happing to me! Read more: http://sm4good.com/2009/11/30/unforgettable-privacy-hole-google-web-hist...

I've submitted by Guardian project to the Human Rights Center Mobile Challenge hosted by Netsquared. In short, Guardian allows you to "own your phone" and more:

While mobile phones have been heralded as a powerful new tool for poticial activists, human rights advocates and public health initiaves around the globe, they are a step backwards when it comes to personal liberty, anonymity and safety. Google Android's open-source mobile telephony platform provides a foundation on which a new type of phone that cloaks its user and their data, both on the device itself and as it communicates around the world.

 

 Read on here: http://www.netsquared.org/projects/guardian-secure-private-anonymous-tel...

Google has apparently applied for a series of patents that will enable it to a put a value on how connected you are, within your social network. Akin to the "pagerank" system used by the search giant for valuing the popularity of websites, "friendrank" would help identify individuals who are particularly influential within circles of friends.

When you buy a book or movie online--or make a political contribution--do you want that information automatically shared with the world on Facebook?

Most people would call that a huge invasion of privacy. But recently, Facebook began doing just that. People across the country saw private purchases they made on other sites displayed on their Facebook News Feeds.

Facebook encourages companies to get "word-of-mouth promotion for your business" to "millions" by using the feature that makes this happen. Sign the petition today

In the following interview we talked about non profit adoption of new technologies and the communicative as well as legal dimensions of blogging, RSS, OPML and wikis. Dennis also shared some thoughts on privacy issues and the upcoming Net Squared conference.