901am

New Media News Every Morning

Are You Dirty?

By Leave a Comment

While we could spend hours debating the usefulness of the Web, one thing is certain: it’s an amazing resource to research people. From sordid pasts keeping people from landing jobs to reconnected with a long lost love, if you exist on earth, there’s a good chance you’ll be found on the Web.

DirtSearch hopes to make your life a bit easier when it comes to searching for scoop on either you or someone you know. A free resource, the Website scours public record data and pulls it all together. Among the things you can expect to find out are criminal records, sex offenders, property ownership and more.

With the results you will also receive a “Dirty Score,” calculating the number of times your name is located.

I happen to have a very common full name, and I happen to live in New York. The site was able to tell me that I have 77 counterparts on LinkedIn – and that’s about it.

Meanwhile, a search conducted in Pipl.com seems to turn up much more information, including social network information.

If DirtSearch wants to compete in this space, they’ll have to beef up the number of sources they pull from. If you give it a try, let us know how it goes in the comments section below.

Originally posted on July 1, 2008 @ 10:47 am

Web companies stepping up stalking activities

By

confidential.gifIn this digital world it’s all about the details. Collectively, this chunk of information is worth billions of dollars in the form of advertising revenues.

So it’s not really surprising why most online companies are dying to gather our personal information by tracking our online activities. Just ask Facebook’s Zucerkberg is you don’t believe me.

However, Internet activity tracking is worse that we normally imagine. According to a news article, research firm comScore found out that major Web companies including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Myspace and AOL capture about 336 billion data every month!

Now, here’s why Microsoft is so into Yahoo. It turned out Yahoo gathers the most information every month, recording about 110 million data per month or 811 per user.

Why are the privacy groups and consumers not complaining about this? Apparently, most of the data collected are done covertly.

As expected, these online companies are quick to defend its practices using consumer-protection policies and credibility as punch lines.

Originally posted on March 10, 2008 @ 8:48 am

Majority of online users not worried about privacy

By

Despite the public clamor against Facebook’s controversial ad system, a new survey by non-profit Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that 60% of Internet users say they are not worried about how much information is available about them online.

Understandably, almost the same percentage does not feel compelled to limit the amount of information about them online. In short, digital footprint does not matter much to majority of online users these days.

And because many online users do not care much about their personal info shared online, more than half (53%) have searched online for information about friends, family, romantic interests, or business colleagues.

In terms of privacy, only 38% have made some steps to limit their information in the Internet. Given the statistics provided, I find myself asking the same question asked by InformationWeek: Is privacy really a legitimate issue if only a fifth of those online express serious concerns about it?

Originally posted on December 18, 2007 @ 10:15 am

Ask.com adds privacy feature

By

While the leading search engines and social networking sites like Facebook are very eager to invade our privacy, Ask.com is taking the road less traveled with its new “privacy switch” named AskEraser.

Displayed prominently on the upper right corner of its home page, AskEraser gives users the power to delete their search activities from Ask.com’s servers within hours. All info like IP address, user ID, session ID, and the complete text of their searches will be deleted in just one click at the “AskEraser” link.

askeraser

Allowing online users to control information is practically a first in an industry filled with aggressive advertisers and information-hungry companies. Ask.com hopes other players will follow suit.

“Anywhere that you log into, anywhere where you put in personalized information, there should be a way – an easy way – to control how that information is used and retained,” said Doug Leeds, senior vice president at Ask.com, a unit of IAC/InterActive Corp. (IACI). “We are giving users the ability themselves to take control of their privacy.”

Still, information will not be totally erased because of the 5-year contract between Google and Ask.com. The search engine giant is not obliged to delete any data coming from Ask.com.

I guess we owe it all to Facebook for making a big mistake with Beacon. Now, every company is paying more attention to privacy issues more than ever.

Read more

Originally posted on December 11, 2007 @ 8:57 am

2 men convicted for pornographic spamming business

By

Two men have been sentenced to more than five years in prison for organizing and running an international pornographic spamming business that grossed over $1 million.

Jeffrey A. Kilbride, 41, of Venice, Calif., and James R. Schaffer, 41, of Paradise Valley, Ariz., were sentenced by U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell of the District of Arizona in a hearing that began on Sept. 24, 2007, and concluded yesterday. Kilbride was sentenced to 72 months in prison and Schaffer was sentenced to 63 months in prison.

Beginning in 2003, Kilbride and Schaffer established a spamming operation in the United States. Their business model consisted of sending millions of unsolicited email messages which advertised commercial Internet hard-core pornography Web sites.

Kilbride and Schaffer earned a commission for each person they caused to subscribe to one of these Web sites. Hard-core pornographic images were embedded in each email they sent and were visible to any person who opened the email.

In all, AOL and the FTC received over 1.5 million complaints from spam recipients. The evidence at trial established that the defendants falsified header information and domain names of the messages they sent by creating a fictitious employee at a shell corporation in the Republic of Mauritius, in order to hide their criminal conduct.

Originally posted on October 13, 2007 @ 1:15 pm