Facebook. It's like every hinky relationship you've ever had — you sense something is up, but ultimately, you're going to do a thing about it (until maybe it's too late).

We've long known more than a few Facebook users don't trust the social network to keep their personal information private. We know this because each and every time a new Facebook privacy kerfuffle hits the news, that's all we talk about in our status updates ... on Facebook. You know, that social network we don't trust with our information. Now, a new AP-CNBC poll has the statistics to support our long-held supposition.

Sixty percent of those polled had a Facebook account — even though more than half of the respondents also said they "have little or no faith in the company to protect their privacy," according to the poll. Are you on Facebook, yet still concerned about your privacy? Tell us why you stay!

Related stories:

• We may not trust Facebook, but we don't quit it either, shows poll
• Why Facebook thinks your comment is 'irrelevant or inappropriate' 
• Does your Facebook 'Like' count as free speech

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about online privacy, then asks you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.

When Jules Rahim posed poolside in a bikini three years ago, she never expected her picture would be posted on either a porn site or a dating website. But that's exactly what happened, the Straits Times of Singapore reports.

The Singapore mother of four (including a newborn) found out about her inadvertent adult modeling career when a friend called her with the awkward news. The bikini picture Rahim posted on her Facebook was now being used to solicit pornography. A few days later, another friend advised her that the same picture showed up on dating site sgGirls.com, illustrating an ad for a charge-per-minute telephone chat line.

"It's embarrassing," Rahim, 32, told the Straits Times. "People I know may think wrongly of me." 

Rahim, it seems, is the victim of photo-jacking — the exploitation of photos scraped from Facebook and other Internet outlets. And Rahim isn't the only victim of image exploitation. The Straits Times reports there are at least two other women in Singapore whose social media photos showed up on the same sites where Rahim's picture appeared.

Rahim filed police reports against both the pornography and dating sites, and intends to file a harassment complaint as well. But there's little, if anything, authorities can do about it. Photo-jacking occupies a legal gray area in Singapore, as well as the United States.

In February, police in a small Massachusetts town asked the FBI for assistance after photos of at least 17 high school girls turned up on pornographic websites. For the most part, the girls were fully clothed in the photos, which were reportedly taken from Facebook and other social networks. As with Rahim, the victims had little legal recourse against the website.

The photos didn't constitute child pornography because the girls were fully clothed. Further, the U.S. Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects Internet service providers — including websites and blogs, in this instance — that host the purloined images. Victims who want their photos removed have the option of claiming copyright infringement. Even then, the burden of proof remains on the plaintiff, as the copyright is generally owned by the person who snapped the shot, not the person in the picture.

In Singapore, Rahim isn't letting it drop. "I want to sue them," Rahim told the Straits Times. "These websites have no right to use my pictures without my consent." The dating site sgGirls.com is hosted in Dusseldorf, Germany and the pornography site is hosted in Los Angeles, California — so both sites operate outside of Singapore law enforcement. Rahim has attempted to contact sgGirls.com site and request that the site remove her photo, but hasn't heard back.

The obvious advice in such cases of photo explotation is to remind users to lock down their social media privacy settings, but even then it may not be enough. It's always possible the perpetrator is a so-called "friend," on Facebook and elsewhere. And even the tightest privacy settings can't protect you from bad "friends."

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Girls expelled for Facebook 'Hit List'
• Mom: Facebook flagged photo of Down syndrome son as inappropriate
• Woman impregnated at Motorhead concert seeks father on Craigslist

When he posted his ex-girlfriend's nude pictures on Facebook three months after their split, Ravshan ''Ronnie'' Usmanov, 20, probably wasn't thinking "Hey, this is my ticket to six months house arrest as the first social network-related conviction in Australian history!"

A similar thought probably wasn't going through the unidentified ex either when, during a happier time in their relationship, she posed for the pics: "Hey, this is my ticket to Facebook humiliation!"

Yet for both, that's exactly what happened. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

The six pictures, according to court documents, showed his ex-girlfriend ''nude in certain positions and clearly showing her breasts and genitalia.

Shortly after posting the pictures on his Facebook page in October last year, Usmanov emailed his girlfriend with the message: ''Some of your photos are now on Facebook.'' She had ended their relationship and moved out of their shared home less than three months earlier.

The woman, who the Sun-Herald has chosen not to identify, ran to Usmanov's flat at Pyrmont, demanding he take down the pictures. When he refused, she called the police.

Usmanov's lawyer said her client's crime was not a "serious offense,'' according to court documents — a claim on which sentencing Deputy-Chief Magistrate Jane Mottley quickly called shenanigans.

''What could be more serious than publishing nude photographs of a woman on the Internet, what could be more serious?'' Mottley said in court records.

Describing a type of reputation decimation both unique and common to the Internet age, Mottley explained, ''It's one thing to publish an article in print form with limited circulation. That may affect the objective seriousness of the offense but once it goes on the World Wide Web via Facebook, it effectively means it's open to anyone who has some link in any way, however remotely.''

Mottley's words are probably echoed by more than a few victims of recently shuttered U.S. "revenge porn" website Is Anyone Up, which the Village Voice recently described as "a virtual grudge slingshot of a website that gleefully publishes 'revenge porn' photos — cellphone nudes submitted by scorned exes, embittered friends, malicious hackers and other ne'er-do-well degenerates — posted alongside each unsuspecting subject's full name, social-media profile and city of residence."

Like a social website specially designed for Usmanov's type of act, Is Anyone Up operated for 16 months on the razor's edge of U.S. legality — protected by the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which limits social media websites' liability against content posted by outside users. U.S. victims of such "revenge porn" have no legal power against the hosting websites. Further, since copyright belongs to the author of the video, which is hard to prove, most victims can only pursue privacy rights depending on their state's laws, with no chance of a jail sentence for the victimizer.

Even in Australia, which has much stricter Internet regulation and laws that the U.S., doing time for such personal damage doesn't come easy.

Usmanov pleaded guilty to publishing an indecent article, but appealed his six-month house arrest and received a suspended sentence instead.

Some privacy advocates in Australia are not pleased with the precedent.

''In a sense this is the tip of the iceberg,'' David Vaile, the executive director of the cyberspace law and policy centre at the University of NSW, told the Sun Herald. ''There are very few convictions under harassment and indecent publication. It's not treated as the same way as, say, breaking into a bank website. There is more police support for criminal damage. In this case, he didn't slash her tires in an act of revenge. He slashed her reputation.''

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Teenage boy brags about Facebook porn arrest on Twitter
•  'Revenge porn' site shut down by 'anti-bullying' site
• 'Hot Girl Problems' confirms Internet hates teenage girls
  

ICanHasCheezburger

Unless you’re Ted Kaczynski circa 1985, living deep in the woods of Montana far from one of the roving homeless 4G connections we so conveniently enjoy here at South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, your illusion of privacy is a sad, pathetic, ridiculous joke.

Providing a much-needed wake-up call to those of you who think your spouse or partner will never know about your dalliances at the local hot-sheets motel (as long as you protect your password), “Sex, Dating, and Privacy Online Post-Weinergate” described the myriad ways in which every step you take, every move you make, is online and searchable.

You don’t have to be a prominent politician sexting pics of your junk to be vulnerable to the brave new world of naked data, panel members said. You may have heard that Facebook and dating-site messages are commonly subpoenaed by divorce lawyers. Did you know, however, that basic facial recognition software — available free online — can expose your real identity from a photo scraped from OKCupid? That’s right — any nude photo with a face attached can now become a porn image with you listed as the star attraction.

Internet smarty-pants Clay Shirky has argued that in the long run, privacy won’t matter because online nudity will eventually be the norm. But you live in the short run. What precautions can you take to avoid becoming the subject of an unpleasant public discussion?

Panel member Violet Blue, a sex educator and tech columnist, pointed to the loose security and privacy practices of dating websites recently exposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. OKCupid, eHarmony, Match.com, Plenty of Fish, Ashley Madison, Grindr and others are all too open about your personal business in ways you may not have imagined.

Here are several examples offered as part of EFF’s “Six Heartbreaking Truths about Online Dating Privacy":

In January, an Australian hacker exploited a security flaw in Grindr, the mobile app that allows gay and questioning men to find sexual partners nearby through the use of GPS technology. The vulnerability allows an attacker to impersonate another user, send messages on his behalf, access sensitive data like photos and messages, and even view passwords.

While this isn’t the case for every online dating site, OKCupid profiles are public by default and indexed by Google. It’s a simple privacy setting, but it can trip up even advanced users, as Wikileaks' Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange learned last year when his publicly-accessible OKCupid profile was discovered. Even something as small as a unique turn of phrase could show up in search results and bring casual visitors to your page.

Last October researcher Jonathan Mayer discovered that OKCupid was actually leaking personal data to some of its marketing partners. Information such as age, drug use, drinking frequency, ethnicity, gender, income, relationship status, religion and more was leaked to online advertiser Lotame.

Learn more about how to protect your naked data on the EFF website.

More stories about life on the Internet from msnbc.com:

• Occupy SXSW? A highspeed connection to Austin's class divide
  
• Ambient apps are the 'Highlight' of SXSW Interactive
• Rainn Wilson smashes guitars, blows your mind
• Porcine abomination and other things I fear at SXSW, the nerd's Woodstock
• Nerd king Joss Whedon loves you, too

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.

Privacy International

Privacy Internationals' interactive map details attendees and exhibitors of six ISS World conferences held between 2006 and 2009.

Twitter and Facebook are credited for the largely passive roles those social networks played in Arab Spring, the revolutionary wave that began in the Arab world in late 2010. Yet we don't hear a lot about other Western tech companies that actively market and sell to oppressive regimes. According to a new report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, this "technology has been linked to harassment, arrests and even torture of journalists, human rights advocates and democratic activists in many Middle East countries over the past year."

Past customers include of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Libya's late MoammarGadhafi, both long criticized by outside monitoring agencies for human rights transgressions. Who else is involved? Time to find out.

In a new series launched Thursday, the EFF profiles tech companies in the United States and Europe that sell technology that could be used in human rights violations. These are companies that demonstrate their wares at Intelligence Support Systems trade shows which, as documented by Privacy International, a non-profit advocacy, are "attended by brutal dictatorships and Western democracies alike. Governments and companies from all over the world meet, mingle, buy and sell."

You can see the companies and countries that have attended the the ISS trade show are documented on an interactive map on the Privacy International website.

What do human rights and privacy advocates such as EFF and Privacy International hope to accomplish by publicizing this information?

Here's an example of what transparency can do: Sales of Nokia handsets in Iran crashed in 2009 when customers learned that Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) sold high tech surveillance equipment connected to violent interrogations by the Iranian government. Privacy advocates hope to inspire similar boycotts and force companies to change business practices by exposing those that sell spyware to authoritarian governments.

UK-based FinFisher, a unit of Gamma International and France-based Amesys, a unit of Bull SA, are the first two companies profiled in the EFF's ongoing series.

FinFisher "provided Mubarak with a five-month trial of their sophisticated spying technology, most notably FinSpy, which can wiretap encrypted Skype phone calls and instant messages — a  service once mistakenly trusted by activists for secure communications," the EFF reports. And that's not all, the EFF continues:

The Wall Street Journal has since reported about FinFisher’s techniques and its technology’s dangerous capabilities. It works much the same way online criminals steal banking and credit card information. Authorities can covertly install malicious malware on a user’s computer without their knowledge by tricking the user into downloading fake updates to programs like iTunes and Adobe Flash. Once installed, they can see everything the user can. The FinFisher products can even remotely turn on the user’s webcam or microphone in a cell phone without the user’s knowledge.

Gadhafi hired Western spyware companies under the guise of guarding against terrorist attack, with French company Bull SA, also known as Amesys, as the main purveyor. Such technology was "deployed against dissidents, human-rights campaigners, journalists or everyday enemies of the state," the Wall Street Journal documented from evidence discovered within the deposed government's abandoned Internet monitoring center.

Here's what that Western equipment did for Gadhafi, notes the EFF:

With Amesys’ monitoring centers, Libyan authorities could read emails, get passwords, read instant message conversations and map connections among criminals, or in many cases, journalists or dissidents. OWNI graphically mapped out just how massive the surveillance system was. Documents released by WikiLeaks in November revealed that Amesys gear was even allowing Libya to spy on dissidents and opposition figures living in the United Kingdom. And as AFP reported, Gadhafi's “regime [had previously] been accused of sending agents to harass and even kill opposition figures in exile.”

In the coming weeks, the EFF will continue to profile the dozens of companies in the U.S. and the European Union that supply equipment to countries known for human rights violations, promising to continue until "Congress and the EU countries act to prevent more of this dangerous technology from falling into the wrong hands."

More on the annoying way we live now:

• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era
• Teens' Facebook pictures posted on porn site, cops warn
• Are your deleted photos still on Facebook?

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.

A recent flap over a social network's app that surreptitiously siphoned contact information from iPhone users' Address Books has exposed a much deeper, wider flaw in iOS that allows other apps to pilfer that information onto their own servers, without needing any permissions.

While outrage over the social network, Path, remains fresh — even resulting in a letter from congressional representatives to Apple demanding an explanation for how and why it happened — it's the concern for the vulnerability and its potential for more invasions of privacy that has the industry abuzz.

The Address Book seems to be imbued with a flaw that allows apps to be data vampires and suck emails and phone numbers directly from a user's contact information into their corporate servers. 

Gizmodo states, "Some app developers — like Path did — are taking advantage of this weakness. The fact is that, at this point, any app can access your address book and steal all your contacts. Just like that. We don't know which apps may be doing this right now. That is a scary thought and Apple should have thought about it."

And over at The Next Web, a very comprehensive report shows the results of tests that reveal the inherent weakness of the Address Book. At least one well-known app, Foursquare, sent personal data without any kind of warning. But now, it joins other apps, such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter that give warnings before the information fleecing. 

While it may be easy to jump to the conclusion that the information gathering is for nefarious means, the Next Web has another, rational perspective:

The important point here is that developers do not have to upload plain text data to their servers in order to offer these convenience features. They can upload hashed, and therefore anonymous, data instead. Then they can use that data to provide the features without ever having seen or stored the plain information.

The answer is likely not that these developers are evil or looking to harvest your data. Instead, it’s likely to be a simple matter of them not understanding that there are better ways to go about it. Developers are only human and many teams have a limited amount of resources.

UPDATE: Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr issued this statement about how apps will need to conform to its permissions guidelines:

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines. We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.”

More stories:

• Careful: Twitter may be storing your contacts
• Path fumble highlights Internet privacy concerns
• 7 signs we’re living in the post-privacy era

On Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the Google+ stream.

Police in a small Massachusetts town are asking the FBI for assistance after photos of at least 17 high school girls turned up on pornographic websites, Boston's 7 News reports.

For the most part, the girls are fully clothed in the photos which were reportedly taken from Facebook and other social networks.

However, the images, repurposed on pornographic sites, are augmented with sexually suggestive headlines and captions, and interspersed with photos of semi-clothed and nude women.

Parents and guardians of the students, who all attend Bay Path Regional Technical High School in Charlton, received letters from the Charlton police notifying them of the ongoing investigation, news of which seemed to spread among students before law enforcement was notified.

"My friend called me and told me that I was on the website, and I was in shock because I kept checking it every day to see if I wasn't," one 18-year-old student told 7 News. "Being on that website and being on a child porn website just makes me look bad as a person."

Exploiting innocent photos taken from Facebook and other Internet outlets occupies a legal gray area and an ongoing practice called "image jacking" or "photo jacking."

Popular social news site Reddit recently banned such content after years of allowing users to post photos of minors scrapped from social networks in forums with such titles as:

• /r/jailbait
• /r/preteen_girls
• /r/jailbaitarchive
• /r/ truejailbait
• /r/GirlsinSchoolUniforms

Photos of fully-clothed minors generally don't constitute child pornography, even if those photos are accompanied by sexually suggestive text. Further, the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (10,000 B.C. in Internet years) protects the Internet service providers — including websites and blogs, in this instance — that host the purloined images.

Victims who want their photos removed have the option of claiming copyright infringement. Even then, the burden of proof remains on the plaintiff, as the copyright is generally owned by the person who snapped the image. And if the photo isn't considered child pornography, and the site is hosted on a server outside the United States, the feds can't do much to help.

What can be done? Not a whole lot.  

Parents should both understand technology and monitor the personal information, photos and other content their sons and daughters post online, Charlton Police Chief James Pervier told 7 News. He added that even while children may have the safest privacy settings on their social networks, their information can still be accessed through the social network profiles of their friends.

Yet even if teens lock down their social network profiles, privacy settings are no longer enough. "When these things happen, the natural response is use your privacy settings," said Michael Fertik, founder and CEO of Reputation.com, a data protection firm.

But in cases such as the one in Charlton, "when all the victims are clustered in a single high school, (the perpetrator) is probably someone they knew, someone in their friends network. And for that, privacy settings don't work."

That goes double for adults, as the practice of exploiting photos online is not limited to minors.

Take for example amateur pornography site isanyoneup.com, which encourages users to submit nude photos of ex-lovers and the like, and then links those photos to the Facebook profile or other social network accounts belonging to the person in the photo.

Not only does it provide a direct path for any stranger to use, it almost guarantees the photos will turn up if any Google searches are done for the victim whose photo/s were exploited.

via 7 News

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Reddit bans sexual images of children, teens
• Are your deleted photos still on Facebook?
• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks you to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.

Duane Hoffman/msnbc.com

More than 250 million photos are uploaded each day on Facebook, according to the social network's media site. And in case you hadn't noticed, "sharing pictures is one of the most popular activities on Facebook." So, not surprisingly, Facebook etiquette about photos is a common complaint among users.

Whether to limit who can tag you in an image, or if pics of other peoples' kids should be shared at all, are often topics of controversy. Most egregious, however, are those embarrassing photos — purposely posted by your so-called "friends," or pics you posted and later regretted. Whether drunk, foolish or flirting with someone you shouldn't be, your appearance in such pics can lead to all manner of awkward situations, including, as we continue to see in the news, getting Facebook fired, or not even hired in the first place.

The best course of action in such situations seems to be obvious — delete these photos from the social network as soon as possible, whenever possible. But as Ars Technica reports, the photos you delete may still exist via direct links to the image, even years after you thought you removed the photo from your profile.

On Monday, Facebook confirmed to Technolog that the social network does have photos in its system that users believe to be deleted. Instead, these images live on, hiding out on content delivery networks which store copies of network data.

"Approximately 2 percent of users' photos are being stored in an older system that was not properly deleting (these images) after a user deleted the photo on the site," Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens said.

How many photos is that? In September 2011, Facebook had more than 140 billion photos, making it 10,000 times larger than the photo catalog in the Library of Congress. So that's nearly 3 billion photos stored on that hinky, hoarding system — though who knows how many are supposed to be deleted, let alone how many feature the drunk and/or otherwise humiliated among us?

At any rate, said Wolens, "We are in the process of migrating these photos to the newer system to ensure proper deletion, but until this migration is complete (ETA four to eight weeks) CDN URLs from deleted photos stored on this legacy system may still be accessible."

Ars Technica first reported Facebook's problems with photo retention in 2009, and at the time was told by a Facebook spokesperson something similar — that the social network was "working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist."

Follow-ups stories by Ars Technica 2010, and again on Sunday reported that images believed to be deleted by readers as far back as 2008 still exist via direct links on Facebook.

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Why there are so many drunk Brits on Facebook
• Facebook IPO explained ... in cartoon form!
• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era

 Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks her to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.

While you probably won't receive so much as a virtual sack of FarmVille pumpkin seeds from Facebook's long-awaited IPO — set to grant Facebook's shareholders millions and billions — there is one thing you'll get out of the deal: a chance to ogle the social network's private business, sort of like it's been doing to you for years.

Privacy advocates have long scrutinized how Facebook deals with privacy and security of its users, but now that Facebook is going public, "disclosure rules affecting publicly traded companies may force Facebook to reveal privacy-related investigations that it otherwise might have kept secret," Ars Technica notes. What's more, the filing informs us about Facebook's own concerns.

Facebook

The required IPO filing references Facebook's recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, stemming from social network's massive privacy rollback in 2009. It also makes note of a current privacy audit by the Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, the result of 22 complaints made against the social network by Austrian privacy advocacy, Europe versus Facebook.

Given Facebook's growing omnipresence in our daily lives, you've probably heard about one or both of these investigations, thanks to privacy watchdogs. But as Ars Technica points out, Facebook, as a private company, was never obligated to tell you. Now that it's going public, Facebook must tell the world what's going on, and how it might affect shareholders. Take, for example, this segment from Facebook's filing:  

It is possible that a regulatory inquiry might result in changes to our policies or practices. Violation of existing or future regulatory orders or consent decrees could subject us to substantial monetary fines and other penalties that could negatively affect our financial condition and results of operations. In addition, it is possible that future orders issued by, or enforcement actions initiated by, regulatory authorities could cause us to incur substantial costs or require us to change our business practices in a manner materially adverse to our business.

What else is Facebook worried about? The Sophos security blog points to No. 23 in the Facebook filing, under risks that may harm the business:

Computer malware, viruses and computer hacking and phishing attacks have become more prevalent in our industry, have occurred on our systems in the past, and may occur on our systems in the future ... As a result of spamming activities, our users may use Facebook less or stop using our products altogether.

"Facebook acknowledging the risks of privacy investigations, malware harming its systems and users and people abandoning the service if it becomes overwhelmed with spam shows they are cognizant of the risk and will now be even more motivated to reduce it," writes Sophos Senior Security Advisor  Chester Wisniewski.

Even though most of us won't earn a dime from Facebook's IPO, our privacy and security may be all the richer for it.

More on the annoying way we live now:

• Facebook offers plenty of reasons not to like its shares
• FTC settlement aside, Facebook still owns your privacy
• FTC head calls out Facebook, Google on Data Privacy Day
• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era

 Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks her to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.

Google

Google doodles often honor people, like Freddie Mercury or Mark Twain, but Saturday's doodle pays homage to the "world's largest snowflake."

The snowflake was seen on Jan. 28, 1887 at Fort Keogh, Montana; at least that's the word from the Guiness World Records, which says a rancher saw the snowflakes coming down, calling them "larger than milk pans," and measuring one of them at 15 inches.

However, noted the New York Times in 2007, "no corroborating evidence supports the claim."

Still, it makes for a fun, animated doodle on Google's home search page. When you go to the page, you'll see a lone cow grazing in a snow-covered field get slightly perturbed when the snowflake drops down (doubling as the second "o" in the name "Google") but then continue foraging.

Also worth noting on Google's search page is this statement, beneath the search box: "We're changing our privacy policy and terms. Not the usual yada yada," with a link to learn more.

Google

The tech giant announced earlier this week it is consolidating more than 60 separate privacy policies for its online products, which is drawing fire from some who are troubled that with the new policy there's no opt-out choice for users. Eight U.S. lawmakers have sent a letter to Google expressing concerns about the policy, due to take effect around March 1.

Google, which also sent an email this week to users of its services about the change, is obviously trying to spread the word about  it. And a big snowflake is one way to help draw attention to the issue — even if some may think that approach is all wet.

Related stories:

• Red Tape: Google's privacy policy change: What the fuss?
• Google to merge user data, privacy policies
• Google 'Let it snow' Easter egg brings on winter
• Google doodle honors Silicon Valley pioneer Robert Noyce
• Not just for fun, Google Doodles drive traffic, too

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Lots of opposition killed the short-lived Hawaii state bill.

Say "aloha" — in this case, "goodbye" — to a proposed law in Hawaii that, if passed, would have forced Internet service providers to keep track of all state residents' activities on the Internet for two years.

One of the goals of the legislation, supporters said, was to help understaffed and underfunded police agencies that are investigating cyber crimes, including identity theft and harassment.

The bill, H.B. 2288, was sponsored by state Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu, and would have made ISPs keep data including individuals' Web browsing history and IP addresses, whether they were accessing the Internet from a smartphone, coffee shop Wi-Fi or from a home computer.

But an avalanche of organizations opposed the bill, saying it went too far and wasn't needed.

"Existing efforts already achieve the goals of HB 2288," said Steve DelBianco, executive director of Washington, D.C.-based NetChoice, an e-commerce trade association, in written testimony to the state legislature.

He said data preservation laws already require all ISPs to keep data "pertaining to a customer when approached by law enforcement." That, he said, gives the police time to "gather additional evidence and secure the necessary court orders to obtain the evidence preserved and retained by the ISP."

And, he said, the reality is "when tracking illegal Internet activity today, law enforcement is 10 times more likely to ask ISPs for the person behind an email address or chat name, compared to requests for an IP address used to post something to a public website."

The bill had a short life; it was introduced last Friday, and quickly squelched by the state legislature Thursday.

If passed, the law could have hurt local government's own efforts at offering free Wi-Fi around the city. Gordon Bruce, information technology director for the city of Honolulu, testified that the bill would force the city to shut down its free Wi-Fi service on Oahu, a service provided through various voluntary partnerships with businesses.

"The requirement of capturing and storing this data will make it cost-prohibitive to those who volunteer to participate in this very successful program," he testified.

Related stories:

• Twitter to restrict user content in some countries
• FTC head calls out Facebook, Google on Data Privacy Day
• Google's privacy policy change: What the fuss?
• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

ICanHazCheeseburger.com

Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill didn't spare Facebook in her speech opening a forum on Data Privacy Day — even though the event was live-streamed by the social network, in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Counsel.

"Reasonably safeguarding consumer information is critical to a trusted online marketplace," Brill said in her keynote, elaborating how it's not enough for companies to have privacy and security policies — those polices have to be enforced. "Our enforcement actions in the privacy area are also a call to industry to put important privacy principles into practice. Facebook and Google learned this the hard way." (Read the full transcript of Brill's speech here.)

Coordinated by the non-profit NCSA, Data Privacy Day "is an annual international celebration designed to promote awareness about privacy and education about best privacy practice." Here in the United States, the day was observed via a Facebook Live, which streamed Brill's keynote speech, as well as two panel discussions featuring representatives from Facebook, Comcast, eBay, MasterCard WorldWide and government agency representatives.

Learning about privacy the "hard way" Brill referred to is, it seems, subjective. The Facebook case Brill was talking about was the recent settlement between the Federal Trade Commission and the social network, stemming from a massive privacy rollback Facebook forced on its users in 2009.

The FTC said Facebook "deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public."

As part of the settlement, Facebook is now barred "from making any further deceptive privacy claims." It also requires "that the company get consumer's approval before it changes the way it shares their data, and requires that it obtain periodic assessments of its privacy practices by independent, third-party auditors for the next 20 years."

As we noted at the time, the settlement does not require that Facebook restore the privacy settings it rolled back in 2009, which led to the FTC investigation. Much user information is still widely available to the public — as well as to Facebook's business partners — by default. If you want more privacy, you need to "opt-out," otherwise your info is out there for anyone to see.

As for Google, Brill wasn't talking about the search giant's most recent privacy kerfuffle, but the Google Buzz incident of 2010. Google Buzz, you may or may not recall, was the pre-Google+ attempt to launch a social network. The weak privacy settings that left user information publicly available by default resulted in lawsuits and last year's settlement with the FTC.

Among other things, the FTC "charged that Google did not adequately disclose to users that the identity of individuals who users most frequently emailed could be made public by default," Brill said. "Like Facebook, Google settled our complaint. And like Facebook, Google is also required to implement a comprehensive privacy program and to obtain periodic assessments that will examine how well the privacy program is put into practice."

Google's Monday announcement about privacy changes could put it back in the FTC's hotseat, however —the company plans a single privacy policy for many products to  "maintain, protect and improve" its more-than-70 services. That's good for Google, because it can build a more detailed user profile for targeting ads. That's not so good for users, because you can't opt out of any of Google's services. So if you're on Gmail, you're on Google Wallet, YouTube and Picasa and everything else, too.

Like Facebook, Google settled the FTC's complaint. And like Facebook, Google is also required to implement a comprehensive privacy program and to obtain periodic assessments that will examine how well the privacy program is put into practice. Google is collecting your information in one giant file, and there's no way to opt out.

As Ars Technica's Casey Johnston recently noted, "Facebook has been tiptoeing over that line for years, and occasionally returning to the other side, recanting. But Facebook is a service predicated on sharing information with others." All the information Facebook has, Facebook users gave willingly.

"Google, on the other hand, has made itself essential with free services like YouTube and Gmail," Johnston writes. "The cost of dropping off Facebook is increased difficulty in stalking your peers, plus nagging questions about why you don't have Facebook. The cost of dropping off Google is, often as not, moving your entire online system for managing communication and information in multiple media elsewhere."

Sounds like Google, at least, is in for the agreed-upon "periodic assessments that will examine how well the privacy program is put into practice." What better day to plan, than Data Privacy Day?

 More on the annoying way we live now:

• 7 signs we're living in the post-privacy era
• Google's privacy policy change: What the fuss?
• How to live with the Facebook Timeline (because you have no choice)

 Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about privacy and then asks her to join her on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+. Because that's how she rolls.