Internet/E-commerce Archive
Big Brother Goes to School
February 22nd, 2010. By LucyC
As webcams become an increasingly common tool used for public safety and crime prevention, the irony appears to be that those doing the watching are the ones that need to be watched most, as a class action lawsuit filed last week so clearly illustrates.
The federal lawsuit was filed by the parents of a fifteen-year old boy who was told by an assistant principal at the school he attends that he “was engaged in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence a photograph from the webcam embedded in minor plaintiff’s personal laptop issued by the school district,” Courthouse news reported last week. How on earth did this assistant principal know that? And who is he to decide what is improper behavior in the youth’s home?
What happened? The answer is pretty creepy. The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania issued laptops with webcams to 1800 high school students as part of an initiative to “enhance opportunities for ongoing collaboration, and ensure that all students have 24/7 access to school based resources and the ability to seamlessly work on projects and research at school and at home.” What’s that expression—never look a gift horse in the mouth? Read on.
As it turns out, it wasn’t just the students that had 24/7 access to the laptops and ‘interconnectivity’. The webcams could be remotely activated by the school authorities at any time they chose, enabling them to “view and capture whatever images were in front of the webcam, all without the knowledge, permission or authorization of any persons then and there using the laptop computer,” the lawsuit reportedly states.
Wait—there’s more. “Additionally, by virtue of the fact that the webcam can be remotely activated at any time
Week Adjourned: 2.19.10
February 19th, 2010. By LucyC
Top Class Actions 
The Internet’s A-Buzz. Over Google Buzz—specifically a class action lawsuit filed by a Harvard Law student, Eva Hibnick, who is alleging that her contacts and contact information were made public by Google when it introduced Buzz, without her authorization.
Here, here I say. I also logged onto my email the morning Google Buzz was launched to find a list of my contacts displayed by the new social networking program. What? Who asked you to do that—was my first thought. It was completely inappropriate—not to mention unnecessary.
As Ms. Hibnick so appropriately put it—she was “shocked to learn that my email contacts may have been shared with others without my knowledge or consent. I signed up for a private email service, not a social networking site.”
The lawsuit seeks to enjoin Google from continuing to operate Buzz without appropriate internet privacy safeguards and it seeks damages, including statutory damages of $100 per day per user.
Enjoin, by the way—in legal terms—means to direct, require, command, or admonish. Personally, I favor command.
Top Settlements
Apropos for Black History Month… History was made on Thursday—when a settlement over a long-
Watch what you Click: Black Friday Shopping Scam
November 24th, 2009. By AbiK
Retailers are on to me. And others of my ilk who avoid shopping malls on Black Friday like H1N1. While you used to have to drive bumper-to-bumper and play kamikaze-style musical chairs to snag a parking space—all for the reward of standing in long checkout lines and eating something “a la king” with a side of onion rings—now you can just tap your keyboard and click away (”Shipping address same as billing address?” Why, it sure is!) and still get the same deals as those loonies who actually drive to get them. Completely hassle-free! Or is it?
Unfortunately, some of the more popular sites that folks find themselves on—such as Orbitz, Priceline.com, Buy.com, 1-800 Flowers.com, Continental Airlines, Fandango, and Classmates.com—have had this little pop-up window every now and then that has you thinking you’re that lucky customer today! You (yes YOU!) can reap your reward—a coupon or that special cash-back deal—if you just click and enter your email address right there!
And it looks so sincere—after all, it appears to be a nice little “thank you for your purchase” from the company’s website you’re on, right? Well, it’s not.
The pop-up ad is actually from a third-party—and most likely from one of 3 companies: Affinion,
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