Information Society Watch

2009, D. Howe and H. Nissenbaum, Oxford University Press

TrackMeNot (TMN) is a Firefox browser extension designed to achieve privacy in web search by obfuscating users’ queries within a stream of programmatically generated decoys. The authors in this article address why TMN’s approach is both legitimate and necessary for web search privacy.

2000, Lucas D. Intron & Helen Nissenbaum, The Information Society

This article argues that search engines raise not merely technical issues but also political ones. The study reveals that search engines systematically exclude (by design and/or accidentally) certain sites, and certain types of sites, in favour of others, systematically give prominence to some at the expense of others.

August 30, 2008, Paul Ohm , University of Colorado Law School

Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, advertisers and copyright owners have been tempting them to put their users' secrets up for sale, and judging from a recent flurry of reports, ISPs are giving in to the temptation and experimenting with new forms of spying. This is only the leading edge of a coming storm of unprecedented and invasive ISP surveillance.

August 28, 2008, The Times

The latest version of Internet Explorer which allows for greater privacy settings while browsing the Internet has potential problems for Google. IE 8 does not allow for websites to collect information about its users - data which is used to target advertising to users by Google.

June 20, 2007, Ryan Singel, Wired Magazine

Laptops have become ubiquitous tools nowadays and an increasing number of people now travel with these machines. A recent case in which an individual's laptop's contents was electronically examined at the border is now being debated in a California court to determine whether such searches are legally tenable.

January 2, 2008, Associated Press

The cell phone has become a ubiquitious device in the modern world and offers functionality far beyond the simple phone facility. As a result, the analysis of cell phone usage can provide significant inputs about a person's profile, from travelling habits to favourite music.

December 19, 2007, Indiatimes Infotech

The proposed Google-DoubleClick deal, in which Google Inc. intends to take over online adtracker DoubleClick, is now being examined by regulators from two angles. The first is the anti-trust point and the other is related to data privacy.

September 27, 2007, The Economist

This article considers the implications of the rise of the new technologies that collect personal information. It is suggested that the lines between the 'old-time police states' and so-called 'free countries' are becoming less distinguishable as the development of new technologies has led to a world in which people's whereabouts, purchases, behaviours and personal lives are gathered, stored and shared on a scale that no dictator of the 'old school' ever thought possible.

October 4, 2007, BBC News Service

Internet law professor Michael Geist considers the possibility that technology is threatening the legal foundations of privacy law. He reports that this year's International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioner's conference addressed possible responses, including privacy audits of both public and private sector organisations and the potential for global cooperation in a world where personal data slips effortlessly across borders.

August 31, 2007, BBC News Service

A move by German federal authorities to spy on the computers of suspected terrorists by deploying malicious e-mails on their computers has come in for sharp criticism. Members of the ruling opposition say that such measures infringes on privacy laws and is a retrograde step.