There is now a social networking site that is attracting teens and it is gaining popularity. It is called MyYearbook and it was intended for teens, ages 13 and up, who wanted to meet online friends. It was originally created in 2005 by high school students David Cook and his sister Catherine. The two asked the help of their older brother, Geoff to help them with their project. MyYearbook was launched at Montgomery High School, where they were students.

But now, there are complaints that the site is no longer just for teens who want to make friends online. A parent reported that his 12-year old daughter showed him what was happening. Together, he and his daughter went through the site. His daughter showed him the messages containing lewd language that she received from men. It was then that he became suspicious that the site is being used by older men who were looking for sex. He added that just as younger children could fake their age, older men can do the same so that they can use the site.

This is not good, but this situation is not totally different from what other social networking sites have experienced. More vigilance by parents has to be exerted so that online safety of children is not compromised. The company’s spokesperson guaranteed that it is sincerely focused on protecting the online safety of its users. In fact, a monitoring team is always working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The best thing for parents to do is to take an active role in protecting their children against online predators.

For many years, people enjoyed the beneficial effects of internet technology. Today, dishonest individuals use that same technology to carry out their own agendas. The risk of cyber attacks in different forms has increased very rapidly. There is espionage, malware, denial-of-service, cyber war, and terrorism hiding behind the networks. There must be both individual and cooperative efforts among networks in order to address this significant issue.

Researchers in Germany have proposed a new approach to network protection that is becoming more and more significant. By rewarding those organizations that support their own network security, they believe that the risk of cyber attack could be reduced. Their study showed that those organizations that carry out this strategy have greatly reduced the spread of malware and other problems. Most of the online communications that are carried out today using the internet and computers are anonymous. As a result, network systems become ever more vulnerable to cyber attacks and harassment.

The researchers explained that a coordinated international or national agreement could start a system of rewards. They also recommend that organizations which are highly exposed to cyber attacks should be given incentives. They added that network security on weak sites should be improved in order to deter the spread of malicious software. Usually, cyber criminals use these weak points to create bot-nets for attacking not only corporate networks but others that they find attractive.

Only very few networks spend money on cyber attack protection. Although they see its benefits, it adds to their cost. However, with the protection in place, not only is the network benefited, the whole internet population is also indirectly benefited. The researchers believe that putting up a reward system that is scaled will encourage both small and large networks to get involved. One possible reward system can be implemented to motivate networks to ensure that their systems are safe.

Self regulation is the self imposition of privacy related programs so as to avoid attacks on privacy. With or without the law, self regulation is the moderation of the use of gathered personal information by companies or groups that collect such data. It is a voluntary action that follows a clear set of rules about how a certain business can safeguard privacy. Self regulation could be done by website advertisers, data brokers, ISPs, social networking sites, apps providers, etc.

The United States has implemented self regulation since 1997. Until now, this initiative has been promoted by way of publishing information and encouraging websites to work towards using it. Currently, not one self regulatory effort that was implemented has sustained success. Some had the chance to begin, but failed in one or more substantial ways. Other efforts only ended up as plans that never really showed what their objective was before they vanished. Self regulation can really help to solve privacy problems if relevant reforms in its implementation are prepared. There is a general thought that consumers themselves should be the ones responsible for safeguarding their own privacy.

Upon evaluation of failed self regulation programs, results revealed that a majority of them were poorly designed. Most of these had poor market saturation, which means that consumers did not really know what they were intended for. There were websites that used self regulation only as a cover up, but income was still their main concern.

Aside from the aforementioned fact, there was another thing that prevented the success of self regulation. Privacy and consumer advocates did not have enough meaningful and independent participation in its development and supervision. When self regulation control is financed by industry, it will not succeed because industry would not want it to. Privacy standards that are driven by money will not succeed because money becomes top priority over privacy.

The product is a full-color, 8GB, 7-inch multi-touch tablet with the new web browser called Silk. Among its advantages, this browser can give users faster surfing speed and increased battery life. Along with Silk, Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2, will be used to route all web connections from Kindle Fire to the web page. Whenever a user goes online, it is clear that “everything” between the user and the internet passes through Amazon’s EC2.

The aforementioned fact has triggered a new wave of privacy concerns. In a website, one blogger wrote that all of the user’s web surfing habits cannot escape Amazon’s Cloud. He was also apprehensive because users will become open to Amazon, which can track everything that they do online. Amazon did not hide this fact in its Terms and Conditions for using Silk. It expressly declared that with Silk, URLs and certain identifiers will stay in its server for 30 days.

Issues that were raised in the past regarding data mining were again brought up. Every user’s transaction using Fire could be captured and controlled by Amazon. Every page that users see, every link that they follow, every click that they make can be recorded by Amazon. Considering that it is one of the biggest servers in the world, such scenarios are really privacy issues. In the past, users have reacted negatively to Facebook’s Timeline. This time, how could they “accept” this one? Users are having negative reactions, and they cannot be blamed.

Amazon clarified that privacy issues are not that dangerous with Kindle Fire. Its owners can use Silk, but may choose not to use Amazon Cloud. If users opt not to use it, the technology will still work for them, but only at slower speeds. Users will still have full control over their privacy, contrary to what the negative feedback has alleged. If one widens his area of observation, the Fire device is not the only one that poses privacy risks. With the present state of technology, there are many other devices out there. It is up to the user to choose how far he or she could let go of his or her privacy limits.

This unwanted tracking is happening without the user’s knowledge. Information sharing technology has become so advanced that codes can be embedded into every page. This is most common among social networking companies. What they do is integrate codes within the file sharing button on a web page. The code is activated as a user visits the page, unknowingly recording the individual’s “presence” and compiling a profile of his or her preferences. Since this is done continuously, the user becomes a target for advertisements based on the kinds of pages that he or she visits.

Firefox has a new product addition known as Priv3. This addition will only allow your visits to be tracked by websites when you want them to. This tool works when you are using Firefox and with this, those built-in codes will not work. This means that you can read a whole article on any web page and not worry about being tracked. Your presence will not be recorded unless you hit the “Like” button on Facebook, or you tweet it using Twitter. If you do not do this, neither Facebook nor Twitter will know that you have been there.

Some users might think that this capability will affect their satisfaction with these networking sites, but this is not so. Priv3 is a technology that works above many hindrances in order to ensure the same quality of enjoyment for users. Third party sites do not know where you go on the web even if you keep logged on to social networking sites. This is because Priv3 prevents them from doing so unless you consciously allow them to. Priv3 comes free for everyone to use.

The article was bombarded by criticisms, saying that this kind of argument is both inaccurate and dangerous. For one thing, maintaining online anonymity helps to protect different groups of people. He admitted that anonymity is open to abuse by some, especially those who are spreading malicious comments without limits. This, however, does not warrant that anonymous comments should be banned completely. There are many newspapers that have established policies concerning this issue, while others have entirely banned such “freedom”.

Those who banned it reason that they want to maintain online civility. No one questions this, and any newspaper should always strive for it. Then again, there is more to being identified online than just by a person’s name. Those who are not working against anonymity said that identification poses a great risk. This risk is one that hinders people from speaking out for the fear of retribution. They also pointed out that the past has a lot of stories to tell about unidentified writings that have made great contributions to humanity.

Without the privilege to remain anonymous, the individual’s capacity to participate in a democratic discourse is affected. Individuals who are identified will not be protected from retaliation in the present, narrow-minded society. Unidentified small groups will no longer be able to criticize cruel practices and policies, or a domestic abuse victim will not be able to find help.

The problem of too much online trash due to anonymous comments can be minimized through moderation. This method has remained helpful. It is simple, yet it can still be effective today. Online newspapers can still depend on its reliability to maintain civility while not taking away an individual’s right to anonymity.

The employee tells a story different from that of his employer as to why he was fired from his post. He said that he was punished because he was the one who stood up for employees who were pressured into attending a prayer breakfast sponsored by a Governor. The Department of Labor claimed that the real cause was his improper filing of timesheets, and not the one he alleged.

What about the GPS tracking device? The device was placed in his car to put him under surveillance so as to keep a record of how he actually did his job. There were allegations that he claimed payment for hours when he was not doing his work. However, the times of surveillance was only supposed to cover his official working hours. What happened was that the monitoring continued during evenings and weekends. There was even a time when the employee’s vacation with his family was monitored.

To justify the use and the “abuse” of the device, an assistant attorney general explained that the employee’s alleged misbehavior at work is enough to warrant tracking. In other words, the objective was to establish continuing misconduct on the part of the employee. He, himself, claimed that he worked odd hours at his job, and in order to find out if this was true, there was a need to track him.

Sometime in 2009, a top court in New York ruled that the police must first get a court warrant before tracking a suspect. They should be able to show probable cause that without placing a GPS device, it would be too difficult and costly to have an officer follow the suspect at all times. Now the courts are asking some questions on the use of this kind of device. Would it be lawful to use it if it would be turned on only during an employee’s work hours?

The main reason many companies use GPS vehicle tracking systems is to increase the employees’ productivity since they know their vehicles are being tracked and have to follow the specific routes for the job.

After two years of its implementation, the specific requirement for cookie opt-out has yet to be clarified. Those who have implemented this directive are confused themselves over what would really constitute an opt-out requirement. A meeting was held among the group members in an attempt to clarify things. Members say that the user’s decision to visit the website is in itself an indication that he or she agrees with the website’s practices. However, those who are directly involved with the implementation believe that there should be a clear opt-in process.

The main reason why some are not resolved to the idea of the directive is that it will cause a little disruption to users. Nowadays, websites have sponsors that automatically store cookies on a person’s computer. When the directive is implemented, pop-up windows would repeatedly appear on the user’s screen. These windows would be asking for the user’s permission to store cookies. This means that if a website is sponsored by nine companies, there would be nine pop-up windows that would all ask the same question. This would happen every time a user opens a website.

Member states are trying to meet the requirements of the directive. The U.S. has implemented the Safe Harbor framework. With this, U.S. companies can perform self-certifications that they meet the EU rules every time they deal with EU customers only. The certification process was able to “pass” some 3,000 companies, but there are some that need to update their certifications.

There is the other side of the story aside from the issue of the privacy of internet users. Congress is a little bit worried about the impact of its implementation on the advertisers. This could also be an issue of advertisers’ personal freedom and not just users’ privacy. It is not yet clear as to the impact that it would create on online advertising.

The U.S. Congress is now bent on expanding the scope of laws that pertain to “cybersecurity”. There is already in place the so-called Computer Fraud and Abuse Act passed in 1986. It mainly deals with the laws that pertain to computer hacking. Ever since, its provisions have been periodically broadened, and it now extends far beyond hacking.

At present, the law considers it a criminal act for any user to exceed “authorized access”. This means that users are limited within the terms and conditions stipulated by the website’s owner. Beyond these, the user faces a criminal liability, especially if the violations are committed within a workplace environment.

This is an eye-opener to those who deliberately misstate their information for any reason. It is common for social networking users to lie about their names and ages. If the law would be implemented, faking information would constitute an offense and would be punishable. Many users would be facing penalties once Congress approves the consideration of such acts as felonies.

There were some cases in the past that involved silly disputes that were filed by private parties. It was reported that an employer sued a former employee for visiting Facebook and sending personal emails. Another ridiculous case involved a company and a competitor. The latter visited the company’s website that prohibited competitors as stated in its “terms of use”.

Analysts suggest that Congress must clearly define those cases that involve crimes. Although there is a need to prosecute real offenders, the law has to be humane. No one would want federal courts to be flooded with cases that involve a mere breach of promise.

The issue with this situation arises when an employer needs to access an employee’s email account during the employee’s prolonged unavailability or absence. Legal implications have been associated with employers opening their employee’s emails. Early this year, the German Higher Labor Court ruled that employers have the right to access and review an employee’s work-related email correspondence. It said that the provisions of the “secrecy of telecommunications” do not apply in this case. The employer cannot be considered a “provider of telecommunication services” although the employee was permitted to use the employer’s email facilities.

One case involved an employee who was absent from work due to a long-term illness. The employer, despite repeated attempts, was unable to obtain the employee’s consent. The employer then opened the employee’s email account, but did not open those emails marked “private”. The employer did this in the presence of two qualified witnesses, and only the employee’s emails that were business-related were read and printed.

Consequently, the employee tried to obtain a court order prohibiting her employer from accessing her email account in the future without her consent. The court did not favor her, and further reiterated that her employer was not a “provider of telecommunication services”. The circumstances do not qualify the employer to fall under this category.

The Higher Court explained that the employee’s use of the company’s email system is just a “side effect” of her normal daily tasks. There is not sufficient basis to consider that it would fall under the scope of the Telecommunication s Act. With this present court ruling in Germany, employers have the right to open an employee’s email accounts even without consent, however, the limitations would be that only business-related email correspondence in an employee’s email inbox would be opened, read or printed.