June 13th, 2009

Six things to know if your Facebook username has been squatted

Posted by Denise Howell @ 8:34 am

Categories: Defamation, Identity, Live Web, Right of publicity, Social networking, Trademark

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Usernames, Squatting, Denise Howell

Here are some things to bear in mind about username squatting on Facebook.

1. I’m guessing Mike Arrington can get this fixed with a phone call or two. (via Dave Winer) If you’re not him…
2. You may have missed the fact there was, before username registration opened up, a form to complete for “preventing [your] trademarks from being registered as usernames.” That form is now closed, and links off instead to Facebook’s non-copyright IP Infringement Form. (Given its wording and stated purpose, I doubt it would have helped with non-trademark-registered individual names anyway.)
3. Facebook (like Twitter, etc.) is not ICANN, and the UDRP has no application to its vanity URLs. Facebook’s terms of service, however, mandate that users not “take any action on Facebook that infringes someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.”
4. Many jurisdictions, (including California where Facebook is headquartered), restrict or prohibit unauthorized use of a person’s “name, image, likeness or other unequivocal aspects of one’s identity.”
5. It’s not “squatting” if someone else happens to share an individual’s name and was able to register it or a variation.
6. All that said, it seems one’s first recourse as the victim of a username squatter is the aforementioned non-copyright IP Infringement Form.

I’d be interested in hearing about people’s experiences with this — whether it turns out to be streamlined and effective or frustrating and a pain. Let me know and I’ll update.

Previously: Chris Pirillo is socialsquatted; does the law care?

November 8th, 2008

Barack Obama is male, taken, and CC licensed

Posted by Denise Howell @ 10:13 am

Categories: Blogging, Copyright, Licenses, Social networking, Trust, User generated content, Voice

Tags: Creative Commons, John McCain, Barack Obama, Digital Media, Consumer Electronics, Personal Technology, Denise Howell, Flickr, Twitter, Camera Phones

I’ve been following Obama’s tweets for awhile, but had neglected the President-elect’s Flickr account until this morning when the Today Show featured some of the great behind-the-scenes election night shots posted there. A lot of these look like they were snapped on a staffer’s camera phone (digital SLR, actually). The U.S. will soon swear in its first President ever who is fluent in online communications, and that does indeed fill me with hope. As does the fact the President-elect’s Flickr photos are Creative Commons licensed. (If you haven’t already done so, you can peruse Obama’s savvy technology policy positions here.)

(Image by Barack Obama, CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic)

July 2nd, 2008

Care to spend your holiday weekend policing directory listings?

Posted by Denise Howell @ 11:57 am

Categories: Anonymity, Identity, Privacy, Social networking, Trust, Virtual worlds

Tags: Reunion.com LLC, Numedeon, Inc., Whyville, Privacy, Identity, David Lazurus, Ray Everett-Church, Denise Howell

I’m not a fan in general of sites that create a listing or profile for you, hoping you’ll eventually claim and/or correct it. This tactic, neither user-centric nor user-driven, is insidious for at least three reasons:

1. inaccuracies proliferate,
2. privacy is frequently jeopardized, and
3. users are required to invest considerable time and supply yet more personal data in an effort to remedy 1 and 2.

David Lazarus gives examples of these sorts of problems in his Los Angeles Times piece today, Social networking site divulges child’s personal information. He tells of a mom who looked up her Reunion.com listing just to see what it might say, and learned it included her toddler son’s name and their family’s home town: things she would rather not have readily associated with one another. This occurred even though Reunion.com says it creates its listings only from “publicly available” information, including that purchased from a data broker. When the Times came calling, Reunion.com removed the reference and now says “measures have been put in place to make it easier for people to have information deleted from the site,” though I don’t see much here that bears this out.

Lazarus tapped privacy guru Ray Everett-Church for his thoughts on the matter. There goes the weekend:

[I]t’s up to parents to monitor online directories such as Reunion.com and make sure their kids’ names aren’t present.

Everett-Church also suggests parents do everything they can to keep children’s information out of corporate databases — presumably by using false names when subscribing to magazines, using online services, etc.

There are market opportunities around these pain points. The value of brokered data plummets once enough people game and/or end-run that system, whereas the value of systems and relationships that meet expectations and demands around accuracy, privacy, and time efficiency goes through the roof.

Elsewhere in the L.A. Times, Numedeon Inc.’s Jen Sun thinks there’s an upside to ruses run by some Whyville users who con others out of online goods and funds in exchange for nonexistent rewards: “It’s a learning experience for the victim not to be so gullible, not to be motivated by greed, because the scammers use greed against you.” I hope we don’t have to wait for all the nine year-olds to grow up in order to figure this stuff out.

(Image by LabGP & SigOther’s, CC Attribution-2.0)

May 24th, 2008

Section 230 to Twitter and others: Delete away

Posted by Denise Howell @ 12:15 am

Categories: Defamation, Live Web, Social networking, User generated content

Tags: Immunity, Twitter, Section 230, Denise Howell

Community and content management don’t void a site’s immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Participation in an unlawful act does.

I was thus taken aback by the legal analysis included in Wired’s/Betsy Schiffman’s post about Ariel Waldman and Twitter (Twitterer takes on Twitter Harassment Policy):

John Dozier Jr., a managing partner at Dozier Internet Law, says Twitter may have risked its immunity under the Communications Decency Act the moment it “edited” or altered content on the site. (An “edit” could include any sort of alteration, such as promotional placement or displacement on the site.)

“If they’ve edited content based on their subjective perspective, they put their immunity at risk and virtually their entire online business, because then they’d be liable to defmation [sic] claims or anything else that a publisher would,” Dozier says.

What’s at stake in the Twitter-Waldman discussion, as I understand it, is not editing or alteration but removal: something squarely protected by Section 230. (To be clear, editing and alteration don’t per se void the immunity, either.) As Professor Eric Goldman (a Section 230 scholar and frequent analyst) put it in a recent, unrelated post:

47 USC 230. Many people operate under the outdated myth that a site must choose to be either a publisher or a passive conduit. Fortunately, the law facilitates heterogeneous approaches to UGC. Per 230, a [site owner] isn’t liable for third party content with limited exceptions. Ownership doesn’t matter; editing doesn’t matter, prescreening/policing doesn’t matter. …

Evan Williams and co. at Twitter haven’t been invoking Section 230 as a basis for their decision not to remove certain complaint-generating submissions or their author; let’s not start doing it for them.

(Image by carrotcreative, CC Attribution-2.0)

April 23rd, 2008

Upcoming panel on exploiting the social graph

Posted by Denise Howell @ 12:18 pm

Categories: Attention, Conferences, Identity, Licenses, Live Web, Privacy, Social networking, User generated content

Tags: Social Media, OnHollywood, Denise Howell

At a conference I attended last month on social media law (I have some interesting notes I’ll post soon), I was struck by how lawyers for social media giants such as Facebook, MySpace, Google, find speedy ways to accommodate powerful copyright holders on infringement issues. When it comes to concerns over exploitation of user data, however, their solution is to draft the most draconian terms of service imaginable (knowing no one pays real attention), consider themselves legally covered when user complaints crop up, and occasionally ratchet down the terms or otherwise execute a subtle course change when things begin to get ugly: as with Beacon, or Billy Bragg, or, presumably soon, Google Reader.

We’re going to further explore this topic in a panel I’ll moderate at OnHollywood on June 10th. What do you think about different approaches to managing user data? If none of the poll answers fit or you want to expand, please comment.

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February 18th, 2008

Lawrence Lessig, congresscritter nominee

Posted by Denise Howell @ 9:49 am

Categories: Copyright, DMCA, DRM, Free speech, Live Web, MGM v. Grokster, Net neutrality, Privacy, Social networking, Social news

Tags: Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, Congress, Facebook, Denise Howell

TWiL regular John Palfrey announced a great idea last week while we were recording the forthcoming episode: a Facebook group drafting Professor Lessig for a recently vacated Congressional seat. Says John, "It’s high time we had our first true Free Culture candidate for public office." The Facebook group is about to hit 2,000 members, and there’s an official Web site as well (get your badges here). Seems appropriate in an election season so unusually filled with promise for needed change.

For his part, Professor Lessig isn’t ruling anything out, telling Ars Technica, "At this point, I’m not really able to say anything. I’ve been kind of stunned by the push of many, and am away with my family this weekend to think things through." More from Ars Technica, TechCrunch, and Slashdot.

[Update, 2/20/08 6:51 a.m.] TWiL #12 went up yesterday.

[Update, 2/20/08 6:55 a.m.] Via Jonathan Zittrain, a new site from Professor Lessig, lessig08.org: "I have decided I want to give as much energy as I can to the Change Congress movement. I will decide in the next week or so whether it makes sense to advance that movement by running for Congress."

January 30th, 2008

Docstoc for law school (a.k.a. today's young whippersnappers don't know how good they have it!)

Posted by Denise Howell @ 10:38 am

Categories: Blogging, Collaboration, Licenses, Live Web, Social networking, Tags, User generated content

Tags: Law School, Docstoc, Jason Lawrence Nazar, Denise Howell

My goodness. Check out the impressive array of law school outlines and other law school and bar exam resources being amassed at Docstoc. Aside from being incredibly useful, my favorite thing about this service is its built in Creative Commons licensing. A perfect place to share form legal (and other) documents — as Marc Canter discussed wishing to do on a recent episode of The Gang.

Bonus link: Are Cease-and-Desist Letters Subject to Copyright?

P.S. You know you’re becoming an elder-blogger when:

• you’re just as apt to think MSM refers to methylsulfonylmethane as mainstream media, and
• you’re just as apt to think Idoru is one of your dozens of daily nutritional supplements as a William Gibson novel.

P.P.S. Don’t get me started on the elder hottie thing; dragonlike, I might just aim a hot flash in your direction.

(Image of Docstoc’s CEO and Pepperdine law grad Jason Lawrence Nazar by Brian Solis, CC Attribution-2.0)

January 21st, 2008

Harvesting data from children with cuddly creatures and cutesy keyboards

Posted by Denise Howell @ 2:16 pm

Categories: Anonymity, Identity, Minors, Privacy, Social networking, Virtual worlds

Tags: Information, Parents, Children, Privacy, Build-A-Bear, Denise Howell

And you thought Beacon is (was) creepy.

Yesterday I had my first experience at a Build-A-Bear Workshop store. Build-A-Bear, if you’re not familiar with it, is a publicly traded company headquartered in St. Louis, MO, with some 350 retail outlets worldwide. It’s irresistible to boys and girls alike, if the birthday party we attended was any indication. Kids can choose one of over 30 different styles of animal, stuff it onsite using big yellow machines filled with flying fluff, carefully add a small heart to bring the animal “to life,” and customize to their heart’s content (and their parents’ wallets’ horror) from a stupefying collection of sounds, clothes, shoes, and accessories that include miniature skateboards and MP3 players.

All good, clean — if decidedly consumer-culture focused, and potentially bank-breaking — fun. Until you get to the last step in the process, which had me nostalgic for (egad) the Cabbage Patch Kids. Who as I recall were discharged from their mythical birthplace without asking for their new owner’s home address.

You see, each Build-A-Bear critter is issued a “birth certificate,” which is generated after the kids — and hopefully their parents, though that didn’t seem to be making a bit of difference on the common sense front — visit a bank of computers. These are big orangey-purple affairs, sort of Dr. Seussian in presentation. The keyboard buttons include stars and other colored shapes to make data input all the easier and more intuitive for youngsters. In fact, the computer-plus-keyboard experience is very close (no doubt intentionally so) to something children and their parents might have experienced in a kids’ museum, library, or school. Before their new friend can get its birth certificate, the kids are prompted to enter a host of very personal personal information: birth date, home address, gender, phone, and email among them. Along the way is the option to “skip” some of this input, but unlike what we’re used to in the world of online retail forms, there’s no effort to communicate what data is “required” for the transaction to proceed, and what’s “optional.” The overall effect is to sideline the privacy-savviness that might otherwise accompany the parent and/or child. I sat there and watched parent after parent prompt their kids to flex their memory muscles and practice their computer skills: "Ok Timmy, now, what’s our address? What’s your birthday? Do you remember our phone number? Good typing!!"

It’s not until after the kids have given up all this data, most often with their parents help and lulled consent (though there’s no requirement that parents participate at all), that Build-A-Bear gives its customers a copy of its privacy policy, which comes tucked away in the packaging folks take home.

I really don’t have any problem with Build-A-Bear’s privacy policy, or the tie-ins with the virtual world (Build-A-Bearville) the company hopes your child will visit with his or her new stuffed friend. But though the policy looks good on paper, this is a case where the execution stinks. Parents and kids should not be urged or encouraged to give up personal data, and when they’re asked to do so there should be some up-front reminders as to what is happening.

Cory Doctorow likes to tell an anecdote about how today’s children are becoming more and more inured to invasions of privacy. In his case, children in line at Disneyland thought it odd when he refused to supply a fingerprint. Here, kids are learning it’s ok for a store to know quite a bit about them. Parents should make a stink about this sort of thing and be on the lookout for it.

(Bonus link: Kim Pallister, Can a stuffed bear hold the secret to game piracy?)

(Images by gitb and Brittany G, CC Attribution-2.0)

November 14th, 2007

Death 2.0

Posted by Denise Howell @ 1:39 pm

Categories: Advertising, Collaboration, Live Web, Social networking

Tags: Death, Denise Howell

The recent and unexpected passing of my grandmother (she was the only 98-year-old I’ve known who could, and did, blindside hundreds with her death) opened my eyes to the fact that death in 2007 has become an online, interactive experience. The mortuary partnered with MeM.com to provide an “Everlasting Memorial,” complete with a photo slideshow (which was displayed at the memorial service; this was in Silicon Valley, after all), still images, and guest book:

Customers have told us that one of the most cherished features of the Everlasting Memorial is the guest book section. This allows family and friends from around the world to send messages to share their thoughts and fond memories. To send a message, a loved one merely clicks on the “send message” button, and begins drafting their message. Once received, family approval is required prior to publishing to the web.

Of course, they upsell/make a number of “keepsakes” available to the bereaved.

The San Jose Mercury News, where we ran the obituary, partners with Legacy.com, a similar service. Nicer guestbook format; no slide show. This memorial isn’t everlasting though, until some family member or other benefactor comes along to sponsor the (considerable) hosting fees.

Thus does the Live Web creep into all aspects of life and death. Even while the family is thinking of other, hopefully more profound things, these online communities of mourning — moderated to control, I suppose, disparagement and spam — spring into being at the hands of those on the business side of the death.

While I’m struck by the Web’s increasing role in building communities around death, I’m equally struck by the willingness of the related enterprises to fleece the unsophisticated public. The “keepsake” prices, e.g., around $70 for a hardbound book, are quite high. (Compare QOOP’s hardbound photobooks starting at $29.99.) Consider too the daily charge to run an obituary in the Mercury News:

• $9.75 per 31 character line, plus
• $117 per day to include a photo.

Assuming you’re also charged for the spaces in your 31 character lines, that’s roughly $850 per day for a 400 word obituary w/ picture. This brief blog post, also with picture (one I enjoyed, and hope you do too), is about that length already. It’s clear obituaries are cash cows for the newspaper industry. What’s not clear is how long people who can get the same information out to a larger audience for free or basically free online will continue writing those checks. One of my favorite Steve Jobs-isms, about the challenges they faced at the beginning of the personal computer era, seems particularly apropos here: “People couldn’t type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.”

Bonus links: Shelley Powers, Death 2.0; Matt Marshall/VentureBeat on ‘Respectance’.

(Image by welovethedark, CC Attribution-2.0)

October 15th, 2007

WikiPatents: 1 year old and 10 million entries

Posted by Denise Howell @ 12:12 pm

Categories: Patent, Social networking, User generated content

Tags: Patent, WikiPatents, Denise Howell

WikiPatents, “a public community that reviews US patents and pending patent applications,” is one year old and now home to information and commentary about over 10 million patents and patent applications. It also is as far as I know the only place you can sort patent data by whether the invention in question is amusing, clever, complex, efficient, historic, important, innovative, interesting, practical or simple.