Saturday, July 27, 2013

"Pinterest Allows Users to Opt Out of Being Tracked"

It's one of those taking away with your right hand what you gave with your left situations. Here's a key paragraph:
As for people who do not select the Do Not Track feature, Pinterest will be watching over their shoulders more than it has in the past. As Twitter did in 2012, Pinterest introduced a new feature that it says will help surface better content to users.
Here's the score for Pintrest:
  • 5 points for allowing users to opt in for do-not-track,
  • -8 points for increasing invasiveness for users who do not opt out, and 
  • -15 points for failing to use an opt-in model instead (so that no one would be tracked unless explicitly invited Pinterest to follow them wherever they go).
That puts them 18 points in the red. Nice try.

Monday, July 8, 2013

"Whispering sweet nothings in commuters’ ears"

Thanks to Lisa Lee for bringing this to my attention. Read the comments, too.

Friday, July 5, 2013

PICT book release delayed

This morning I checked on the status of our book, Emerging Pervasive Information and Communication Technologies (PICT): Ethical Challenges, Opportunities and Safeguards, and was surprised to learn that it is not yet available. It was supposed to be available by June 30. 

The new release date is August 31. However, the eBook "will be available for sale soon."

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director