Episode 0027, 12/07/2007
Title: Facebook, Google, and Doubleclick are Watching You, News from the Frontlines of the Botnet War, Tougher Penalties for Copyright Violators
Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 27, recorded December 7th, 2007.
This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information.
This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.
Story 1 - Facebook, Google, and Doubleclick are Watching You
Facebook's Beacon Advertising technology remains a headline story this week as more information about its inner workings has been revealed. Beacon makes use of Facebook's partnership with 38 online businesses to track Facebook users’ activities on those sites. That information is then used for marketing, to target advertisements at Facebook users and their friends. For example, after booking a flight online, my Facebook friends would see an announcement that says "Ken just got a great deal on a flight to Miami at Hotwire.com! Click here to see other great deals!" But what if I don't want anyone to know that I'm going to Miami? Or what if that pair of gloves that everyone now knows I purchased, was intended to be a surprise present for a friend?
Apparently in its rush to make advertising dollars from its corporate partners, Facebook failed to consider issues of privacy. Mark Zuckerberg admitted as much in an open letter to the Facebook community in which he apologizes for the oversight. But rather than discussing the financial gain that Beacon provides Facebook, Zuckerberg framed the service as supporting Facebook's primary goal of "helping people share information with the people they want to share it with".
This week, the inner workings of Facebook's Beacon were more fully uncovered. Facebook's 38 corporate partners, which include Blockbuster, Hotwire, Overstock.com, and Sony, provide Facebook with records of the activities of all visitors to their Web site. Not just Facebook users, but everyone that visits the site. For Facebook users that do not opt out of the service, activities on partner sites are shared with their friends. Facebook users are essentially turned into product endorsers. Also users’ activities at partner sites are used to create a consumer profile of Facebook members that is used to target members with ads within Facebook that match their interests.
Facebook's current clash with privacy advocates is reminiscent of a similar case with online advertising giant Doubleclick in 2001. Doubleclick is the Web's largest provider of adverting. The company was brought up on federal and state charges of privacy invasion for collecting consumer information across numerous Web sites using cookies. Cookies are small data files that are stored on user's computers when they visit Web sites in order for the Web host to identify the visitor and track user activities. The same technology is used by Facebook and its partner companies. Doubleclick was found innocent in its precedent-setting federal case which is most likely why no one is rushing to take Facebook to federal court. However, it would not be surprising if Facebook doesn't end up in a legal defense of its Beacon program somewhere soon.
Facebook's predicament should cause all of us to pause and consider our online privacy rights. We are on the cusp of an era of rampant detailed consumer profiling where information about everything we do on the Web is freely collected and shared. Google is currently in a struggle with numerous countries to win approval to acquire Doubleclick. Governments fear that the combined power of these two online information giants would threaten consumer's privacy rights as never before, and offer Google an unfair advantage over its competitors. Most of the big online companies that depend on advertisements for revenue are battling it out to win big advertising dollars by building giant databases of detailed consumer information, to effectively target each Web site visitor.
Just as with Facebook's Beacon, it would appear that our future, by default, is one of very little online privacy, unless we attempt to opt out by motivating our government to create laws that protect that privacy.
Source: Update: Facebook caves in to Beacon criticism (Computerworld), Mark Zuckerberg Red in the Facebook (CIO Today), List Of Companies That Participate In Facebook's Beacon Spy Program (The Consumerist), An Open Letter from Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Legal Victory for Internet Advertising Industry (NYTimes, 2001), Google is watching you (Guardian Unlimited)
Story 2 - News from the Frontlines of the Botnet War
The FBI is working with New Zealand authorities to track down the leader of a botnet ring that is responsible for infecting over a million computers and using them to steal over $20 million from bank accounts. The search has led authorities to the home of an 18 year old New Zealander identified only by his online alias "Akill". If charged, the youth would face up to 10 years in prison.
Meanwhile investigations into a botnet attack that spewed out millions of emails endorsing Ron Paul for president has led investigators to the Ukraine. The botnet included 3,000 PCs infected with a Trojan Horse that installed a spam-spewing bot called "Reactor Mailer". The bot net is typically rented out to send spam about pharmaceuticals, and other products. In this case someone hired it to send political spam. It is difficult to say if the promotion helped or hurt Ron Pauls campaign.
In a more serious attack, hackers employed a bot net to send virus laden emails to employees at top-level US research labs including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. When run, the virus opened a backdoor to the system allowing hackers to access databases that stored visitor information including social security numbers and dates of birth. Visitors to these labs include a who's who of the most prominent scientists in the country.
Source: FBI Helps Bust International Botnet Ring (CIO Today), Police swoop in on New Zealand botmaster (Cnet), Researcher: Ukrainian botnet sent Ron Paul spam (Computerworld), Spam Promoting Ron Paul Traced to Ukrainian Botnet (Wired), Hackers Launch Major Attack on US Military Labs (PCWorld)
Story 3 - Tougher Penalties for Copyright Violators
Top Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that would crack down on copyright violators by focusing more attention on the crime and increasing penalties. The bill is named the Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act, or PRO IP Act. If passed into law, there would be increased fines, maximum penalties for repeat offenders, and the seizing of computers and network hardware used to facilitate copyright crime. A new federal bureau would be established called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, or WHIPER. Also, the U.S. Justice Department would create an "Intellectual Property Enforcement Division" to go after copyright infringement on the Internet. If passed, this bill will make RIAA law suites look trivial.
Source: Major copyright bill boosts penalties, creates new agency (c|net)
New Briefs
That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!