Privacy issues still cause for concern

Privacy on the internet continues to concern Mack-line.

We all know that once you are on the net, certain personal information is always available to people who have basic skills.

But the continual upgrades of services like Facebook and YouTube means that more information about a wider range of people becomes more freely available to even amateur internet sleuths.

I was out of town last week and logged on to my xtra.co.nz account through the Yahoo!Xtra portal.

Recently, I had switched back to Outlook on my PC as I could not easily solve a problem with Thunderbird stopping me from sending mail.

I phoned a help-line, joined an online group and posted some questions.

Nothing helped.

I restarted my Outlook, and no problems.

However, one of the problems I have noticed is that there is no way of diverting spam into a folder for later inspection.

Thunderbird allowed suspected spam to be diverted.

With Outlook, I either get it (not much, admittedly) or it disappears into the ether.

It was with some surprise that when I logged on through Yahoo!Xtra, I could check a spam folder containing 280 messages to find I was spamming - to myself and presumably to others.

Further checking will take place.

Back to Outlook, Mack-line was informed that the social connector in Outlook has united it with popular social networking sites.

Users of Outlook will be able to see the Facebook profile photos of their email contacts, plus their news feeds, status updates, pictures uploads and wall posts.

The move follows an integration between Outlook and business network LinkedIn.

Microsoft Office 2010 product manager Chris Adams said the Outlook social connector and providers from partners, such as Facebook, made it easy and convenient for busy people to stay in touch with the people they cared about.

Last year, Microsoft launched Outlook social connector as part of its new Office 2010 software which went on sale in June.

Nate Elliott, a principal analyst with research firm Forrester, said on NYTimes online, the news would have more impact for the companies involved than for consumers.

"I'm not convinced it is a huge deal from the consumers' point of view as it doesn't really change the social media experience.

"Pulling in a photo of someone in your contacts list isn't that spectacular.

It does allow you to add people to your Facebook account but that is a relatively minor piece of functionality."

For Microsoft, it was an acknowledgement that the social web was here to say, he said.

Privacy is also causing a major furore in the United States, particularly on the ownership of a gay teenagers' database.

The owner of XY Magazine and its associated website - which catered for young homosexual boys - filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.

XY's creditors have applied for the firm's one remaining valuable asset: it's database of one million users.

The issue of selling databases is not new, but it is the sensitivity of this particular database that is catching the attention of US lawmakers.

The list contains details of tens of thousands of young men, the majority of whom will be gay.

On the technology blog Read Write Web, Curt Hopkins summed up the concern felt by many users.

"The selling off of private information, gathered under the supposition of privacy, is bad enough. Even worse if you're forced into it.

"And positively untenable when the information is connected to kids who are dealing with the dawning of sexual reality that in some instances is even more fraught than what straight kids go through," he wrote.

Many of us feel information should not be used other than for the purpose for which it was originally intended.

However, in a bankruptcy or liquidation, the rules change immediately both in New Zealand and overseas.

XY's founding editor Peter Ian Cummings filed for bankruptcy in February of this year.

He listed his personal assets at $US1500, a net income of zero and one other asset - the customer list, personal data and editorial and back issues of XY Magazine and XY.com.

Shoshanna Schiff, a partner with the Trenk law firm that represents the creditors, told the US website Cnet.com that any property listed on the debtor's bankruptcy petition was the property of the bankruptcy estate and her client intended to administer those assets for the benefit of creditors.

As social networks, dating sites and other online "groups"continue to abound on the net, where your information may end up is something to think about.