Privacy%20Policy,%20Law%20and%20Technology%20Search%20Engines%20and%20Social%20Networks

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Privacy Policy, Law and TechnologySearch
Engines and Social Networks

• October 21, 2008

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Online Social Networks
http//services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/view/
S0yoPHsOtha6O6-7UKyQH2-
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graph from compete.com
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MySpace

• Profiles available to the public
• No login required to view information
• Used for Social Browsing
• Finding new friends

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Privacy Settings
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Facebook

• Perceived as a closed community or for college
  students only
• Login required to access profiles
• User for Social Searching
• Finding existing friends, or people met in person

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Privacy Scandals

• Facebook Mini-Feed/Feed Uproar
• Introduced in Fall 2006
• Aggregates all Friend profile updates
• Aggregates all actions taken on Facebook
• Generated Uproar and User Backlash
• User base opened to everyone
• Added geographical networks
• No longer limits to .edu email addresses

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Pimp My Privacy

• New Privacy Features introduced
• Enhanced Settings
• Specific Mini-Feed information can be removed
• Access control granularity increased to the
  Network Level
• Limited Profile introduced

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Privacy In Facebook

• People are more privacy-protective than default
  setting

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Search engines

• Search engine query logs can be very revealing
• Provide insights into what people are doing,
  interested in, thinking about
• Can be connected to form longitudinal profile
• Difficult to anonymize completely
• 2006 AOL search log release
• http//aolstalker.com
• http//aolpycho.com
• DEMO

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Why share query logs?

• Academia has difficulty contributing to web
  search
• Untold insights into human behavior exist within
  logs

Source Andrew Tomkins
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Why not share query logs?
Source Andrew Tomkins
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Person attack versus Trace attack

• Trace attack given a trace, identify the person
• Person attack the dual
• Adversaries in person attack
• Neighborly knowledge
• Query knowledge
• Browser compromise

Source Andrew Tomkins
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Person attack (750K users)
Source Andrew Tomkins
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Discussion

• What are the privacy risks associated with social
  networks and search engines?
• What are the web sites doing to mitigate these
  risks?
• Is it enough?
• Is opting in to having your data collected and/or
  shared sufficient?