In the Parlance of Our Times

I shook my head yesterday when I read this Monkey Bites blog entry about users who are up in arms with the way Yahoo is using their Flickr images. Yahoo is showing thumbnails of Flicker images tagged Wii on the Yahoo Wii portal page. Users are objecting, and responding by tagging photos Wii - some quite funny, some quite rude - when they have nothing to do with Wii.

I shook my head, because once again it shows that users of these services are paying no attention to the Terms of Service agreements for these web services. The uproar stems from the misconception on the part of the users that they have a right to privacy on these very public sights. This is the second such incident I've noticed in the last few months - the first being the Facebook incident last fall, when Facebook added a new feature they thought users would enjoy, but the users saw the feature as an invasion of privacy.

I think some good will come from all this. More people are beginning to realize that they need to understand what they are agreeing to when they check that box that says "I have read and understand the Terms of Service agreement" and so more will at least attempt to read the text before checking the box.

That's all I ask.

The Boston Globe has a good article today summarizing some of the ways stores are using data gathered while we shop: Risks mount as stores mine a wealth of shopper data. They talk about loyalty cards - high on my list of things I'd like to "unvent" - but also credit cards, data collection at the register, etc.

Two quotes from the end of the article stand out:

"For some merchants, getting consumer data is the first priority, protecting is an afterthought...One reason: Penalties for failing to safeguard personal information are rare."

And:

"'Customers ought to be cautious and consider what they are gaining for giving that information, where the information is going and who else is going to have access to it,' [Lauren] Noether [chief of the New Hampshire attorney general's consumer protection and antitrust bureau] said. 'It may not be worth what they're getting in return.'"

Exactly.

Today I came across this performace by spoken-word artist Rives, which starts "If I controlled the internet..." It's pretty entertaining. I particularly like the idea of emailing the dead. ("They would not email you back. But you'd get an automated reply. Their name in your inbox. It's all you wanted anyway.")

So what would you do if you controlled the internet?

I've been reading a lot lately about Facebook, MySpace and the like and especially about parents seeking out their kids' sites. Does anyone else think, as I do, that reading what my kids would put on such a site may be more information than I want to know? If one of them went to a party on Saturday night and then later posted a picture of him or herself looking like a bit too much drink had been had, is this something I want to see? I don't think so.

Now, my kids are both of age. And they don't live at home. But it hit me a long time ago that I needed to be careful not to use the web to cyberstalk them. I think it was when Louise first went to college. Out of curiosity, because I was working with the web myself, I searched her college's web site to see what use her professors were making of the web. I found a site for her math class, complete with details about each day's assignments.

For a few days I followed this site, watching to see what assignments were being posted. But then it hit me. Would I have wanted my parents following a class I took so closely? What was I doing it for, anyway - was I going to call Louise and ask her if she'd done her homework? Shouldn't I leave her alone and let her figure out for herself how to make her way through college? No, no, and yes.

I stopped visiting the site. Louise told us later that the professor wanted to post grades - identifying students only by their ID numbers - on the site but she objected on the grounds that we might be watching. Smart girl.

I read today that an exercise equipment company is adding iPod integration to their commercial equipment:Life Fitness to Deliver Seamless iPod Integration with Exercise Equipment. The really interesting part is that through this integration you will be able to watch your iPod videos on the equipment's larger LCD screen.

For year's I've avoided the gym. I prefer to do my exercising in private and so have accepted the monotony of using the same piece of equipment over and over at home rather than go for the variety of equipment available at a gym. But a gym with this new equipment could change all that.

Not that I needed it, but this gives me a new - and healthy - excuse for getting an iPhone. Can't wait.

This article about a person being charged with theft of services for using a public library's free wi-fi outside of library hours is perplexing. Even more perplexing is the number of comments supporting this that I've seen online.

Is there really legal basis for charging him with theft of services? Apparently he was given a warning previously, but that doesn't really answer the question. Given that this wi-fi is intended for free, public usage I have a really hard time getting my head around the idea that this guy did anything wrong in using it after hours.

A related issue is that of using your neighbor's wi-fi without their knowledge. Is there a law against this anywhere? And if so, how could it ever be enforced? Sure, your neighbor could see in logs that a particular MAC address has accessed the network, but then what? Send the police around the neighborhood demanding to inspect everyone's computers? Don't we need search warrants for that sort of thing in this country?

Seems to me the responsibility has to be on the owner of the wi-fi network to make sure it's only being used as intended. That means keep it secured or, in the case of this library, shut down after hours. Charge people with loitering or trespassing if they're hanging around outside a location for wi-fi access or anything else, but let's not criminalize the act of using the wi-fi.