“Facebook Privacy ” is a bit like saying “Deafening Silence” or “Suicide Victim:”  The words contradict one another, yet they’re often used in the same sentence together.  As we race our way toward Social Media becoming a major part of our lives, we need to address the issues of information and privacy. First of all, let it be said that the best policy to use with Social Media is “Safety First.” Some sites are safer than others,of course, but to truly understand how privacy is administered, it is critical to read those ridiculously long “Terms of Use” statements. Why? Because once you hit the “Enter” button, you’ve accepted them, whether they’ve been read or not. Knowing that we tend not to deal with “trivial” matters, such as privacy, until it’s too late,  sometimes it’s a bonus to have watchdog groups interfering in our lives; in this case, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Though personally not a huge fan of the organization, supporters list the ACLU’s contributions to our society as:

“…the country’s leading watchdog in protecting civil liberties and preserving the Constitution; …protecting the freedoms and rights of all people; …one of the United States’ greatest defender of liberty against government abuse and extremist policies.”

Detractors state that the ACLU actively sabotages the Constitution by using “manipulation tactics” to undermine US courts. Whether a famous, or Read the rest of this entry »

In May 2007, TechCrunch touted Social Media Network, Tagged, as possibly the fastest-growing Social Media site, and touted the fact that it had just become profitable.  Known as a “second-tier” network, along with Orkut, Hi5, Bebo, and Piczo, it was expected that Tagged would soon become a first tier player, ranking with the likes of Facebook and MySpace.

A lot can change in two years, and although Tagged boast 80 Million users, they’ve got their hands full of legal issues at the moment. Yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo charged Tagged with “spamming and stealing identities” from 60 million users.

Tagged’s scam used it’s users contacts to contact people that were not part of the network and sent them emails stating that there were pictures of them posted online, and to see them they would need to log in. Unfortunately, one of the people that received this message was a reporter for Time. Read the rest of this entry »