Twitter sent out an email on Wednesday announcing a couple of upcoming updates, one of which includes automatic t.co link wrapping. In the coming weeks, Twitter's link wrapping service will intercept all URLs posted on the microblogging service and convert them into shorter, easier to read URLs. So what exactly has privacy mavens up in arms? This little tidbit:

"When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we will then forward you on to the destination URL ... When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time," the microblogging site said.

Before you reach for the pitchforks and lighter fluid, keep in mind Twitter isn't the only one harvesting your click activity. As CNET points out, Yahoo tracks user searches, Bing and Facebook both appear to use JavaScript to keep track of where users click through to, and even Google sometimes uses redirects. And don't forget that everything you tweet ends up at the Library of Congress.

Even so, this will come as little consolation to privacy advocates who view this move as a "disgusting data landgrab."

Read More

As power users, we sometimes find ourselves taking certain things for granted, like the basics of overclocking and how to avoid falling prey to common malware schemes. It's good to go over the fundamentals every once in awhile, both as a refresher, and as a helping hand to those just getting into the game. That said, do we really need to remind people that posting on Facebook what you learned during jury duty is just plain boneheaded?

Sadly, the answer is yes. Hadley Jons, a 20-year-old out of Warren, Michigan, inexplicably went and posted on her Faceball wall that it was "gonna be fun to tell the defendant they're guilty" during a day off from the trial and before the case was over.

"You don't know how disturbing this is," Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski reportedly told Jons the next day shortly before replacing her.

Druzinski went on to say that she'd like to see Jons "get some jail time, nothing major, a few hours or overnight. This is a jury system. People need to know how important it is."

Read More

Diaspora hasn’t gotten a lot of press since they wrapped up their rather creative attempt at fundraising, but the founders want you to know that not only have they been busy, but that they will have code ready for public consumption by September 15th. The ambitious anti-Facebook project was a concept pitched by a group of New York University programming students who aim to provide a service similar to Facebook, but with much tighter user controls around privacy.

A recent blog posting by the four students involved in the project still hasn’t really told us what to expect just yet, but if we have to guess it will probably still be several months before we see anything that gets non-programmers excited. If a Facebook alternative is high on your radar you might want to mark off September 15th on your calendar, otherwise it’s hard to imagine this project being anything more than a pipedream in the long run.

I still have my hopes firmly pegged on Google Me. 

Read More

Before you finish typing that status update, why not let uncle Zuckerberg suggest what you ought to be sharing? A new Facebook feature will offer page suggestions to link to while you type your updates. The suggestions are targeted to the user. With the vast amounts of data we feed into the site, this is not surprising. 

Friends will be suggested, but only if you capitalize the name. The same goes for locations, bands, and causes. This will avoid unnecessary suggestions when you don't intend to link to a page. This feature makes more sense in the wake of Facebook's slow rollout of more uniform Interest categories. 

Many expect the announcement of location sharing on Facebook soon, and this feature could take center stage. It may be an easy way to check in at a location by linking to a page in your status update. Have you tried the feature? Was it accurate?

Read More