C is for Cookie – Privacy Cookies, that is….

Heres a good step by step article from the Wall Street Journal online about how to protect your privacy and browsing habits online. This should be de riguer amongst todays surfers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703467304575383203092034876.html

I’m all for allow information to be freely available, but as to whether peoples habits should be accounted for?

Thats a different story. So why dont you practice being a Cookie Monster, and clear your cookies and cache after each session. Typing in your passwords each time is a small price to pay in lieu of preventing big brother from looking over your virtual shoulder….and like Cory Doctorow espouses, they definitely do.

btw, STILL no Palm Pre in sight, in Singapore. I’ve given up. Iphone4, anyone? (Chorus of Yes’s abound…)

Traditional Content Sources & New Media

Heres a nice little story – where a traditional content source was picked up by a netreprenuer [sic] and utilised over various media outlets and formats. Check it!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10658532

It may ring true with you – it did with Technometry….

Citizen Journalism 101

Recent events I heard about through Twitter and Facebook:

• Outcome of Pacquiao v Clottey boxing fight
• Death of Britney Murphy
• That a rugby/league team is winning/losing.
• Death of  rapper Guru
• Airlines have stopped flying in Europe during the volcanic eruption in Iceland
• Man U new kit

Citizen journalism (I call it electronic word of mouth) certainly has got around. The global village that Marshall Mcluhan always talked about is here, and we are in the market square, constantly at speakers corner.

Keep it up people~!

The World is being Rebooted

This world has gone through a few operating systems, ages and eras (errors). From the prehistoric to the analogue, and the Obama from the Bush (speaking of errors). From the modern to the postmodern, to the great era that we consumers know as the internet wars ie TODAY.

This world is in reboot. New ways of packaging, viewing and controlling information. We wiggle, the information on the screen dances. We wave, the characters prance.

Some indicators of the reboot:

• That access to the internet should be a democratic right, so say 4 out of 5 people in a poll of nearly 27,000.
• That Google’s decision to stop censoring search results  is such a huge statement that it could have a substantive impact on how China interacts with the rest of the world.
• That ways of viewing information on a device affects human thoughts and behavior past mere trends; Wii went with hand motion wands, the Xbox will implement a motion-tracking system called Project Natal and Avatar really introduced us to the fact that 3D can actually work.The buzz about the iPad is completely defcon. There is no more GUI (general user interface), – we are actually manipulating information! This is more Tron than Tron.

As THUNDERBIRDS would state it, eyes blazing and pool retracting, we are definitely GO.

Privacy and YOU

The article Privacy is Not Dead, Just Evolving by Tony Bradley is a quick nice bite – a “databyte” to read which

Image via Wikipedia

synchronises nicely with the views held here @Technometry.

In the penultimate sentence of the article Mr Bradley writes

“the challenge is to strike a balance between providing access to all of the information in the world, without exposing all of the information in the world.”

Furthermore that “privacy is subjective” and as stressed in a recent  SXSWi keynote address, “people just want control over when and how their information is shared”.

Some quick and related technometry observations:

If you dont want people to see anything on Facebook/Friendster/MySpace, dont put it up there. Social Media is about sharing. Professional information can be posted to Linkedin. Personal Viewpoints on a Blog. Segment and pair each internet tool to its purpose.

If you do load a picture, understand to control its privacy status – facebook policy can be found here and helpful directions can be found here.

Make it clear to your friends how you feel about postings of pictures about yourself. There is no shame, in this day and age to make put censor controls on your physical friend network as well. 🙂

People need to better recognise that privacy is no longer a broad sphere, its a universe.  Conduct a vanity search on your name in Google. If you dont appear…youre one of the few.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Internet perceived as a fundamental right (v3.co.uk)