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Recent and proposed changes to Facebook’s information sharing policies have Senators Franken (D-MN) and Schumer (D-NY) a little irritated. They’ve penned a letter, along with Michael Bennet (D-CO) and Mark Begich (D-AK), asking Facebook to reconsider their new opt-out procedure, and to take further steps to keep user’s personal details, such as their interests and friend lists, private unless they chose to share them.

In a statement, Senator Schumer warned that the interests lists opened the door for unwanted marketing efforts.

“I love baseball, but I don’t want to be grouped online with thousands of people who also like baseball unless I choose to join this kind of online group. Right now, this new Facebook policy does just that. No doubt, marketers peddling their wares will find this grouping a treasure trove and inundate users with solicitations and more,” said Schumer

Here’s the letter:

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

We are writing to express our concern regarding recent changes to the Facebook privacy policy and the use of personal data on third party websites. While Facebook provides a valuable service to users by keeping them connected with friends and family and reconnecting them with long-lost friends and colleagues, the expansion of Facebook – both in the number of users and applications – raises new concerns for users who want to maintain control over their information.

The following three changes have raised concerns:

1. Publicly available data. Facebook’s expansion of publicly available data to include a user’s current city, hometown, education, work, likes, interests, and friends has raised concerns for users who would like to have an opt-in option to share this profile information. Through the expanded use of “connections,” Facebook now obligates users to make publicly available certain parts of their profile that were previously private. If the user does not want to connect to a page with other users from their current town or university, the user will have that information deleted altogether from their profile. We appreciate that Facebook allows users to type this information into the “Bio” section of their profiles, and privatize it, but we believe that users should have more control over these very personal and very common data points. These personal details should remain private unless a user decides that he/she would like to make a connection and share this information with a community.

2. Third party data storage. Previously, Facebook allowed third-party advertisers to store profile data for 24 hours. We are concerned that recent changes allow that data to be stored indefinitely. We believe that Facebook should reverse this policy, or at a minimum require users to opt in to allowing third parties to store data for more than 24 hours.

3. Instant personalization. We appreciate that Facebook is attempting to integrate the functionality of several popular websites, and that Facebook has carefully selected its initial partners for its new “instant personalization” feature. We are concerned, however, that this feature will now allow certain third party partners to have access not only to a user’s publicly available profile information, but also to the user’s friend list and the publicly available information about those friends. As a result of the other changes noted above, this class of information now includes significant and personal data points that should be kept private unless the user chooses to share them. Although we are pleased that Facebook allows users to opt-out of sharing private data, many users are unaware of this option and, moreover, find it complicated and confusing to navigate. Facebook should offer users the ability to opt-in to sharing such information, instead of opting out, and should make the process for doing so more clear and coherent.

We hope that Facebook will stand by its goal of creating open and transparent communities by working to ensure that its policies protect the sensitive personal biographical data of its users and provide them with full control over their personal information. We look forward to the FTC examining this issue, but in the meantime we believe Facebook can take swift and productive steps to alleviate the concerns of its users. Providing opt-in mechanisms for information sharing instead of expecting users to go through long and complicated opt-out processes is a critical step towards maintaining clarity and transparency.

I’ve been getting some questions about the upcoming Rapture Metro Pack, the next DLC for BioShock 2 that’s coming to Xbox 360 and Games for Windows -LIVE, so I thought I’d help clear up some details.

 

Rapture Metro Pack (800 Microsoft Points):

 

· Six all-new maps built, some built from the single-player portion of the game

· Three new Achievements/Trophies

· Rebirth Feature – Players who reach rank 50 have the option to rank down to Level 1 and receive a special mask

 

And just to update: the content will not be available this week as previously reported.

 

I’ll have more details on timing in the very near future.

Four senators have sent a joint letter to Facebook asking that it make changes to the way it handles privacy, the latest salvo of privacy-related criticism to be directed at the social network. One of them, Charles Schumer — a Democratic senator from New York — also sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Sunday asking that the agency investigate Facebook for breaches of privacy legislation. The latest criticisms appear to have been fueled by Facebook’s recent launch of new features at its f8 conference, including social plugins for websites, an open graph protocol and a so-called “instant personalization” feature that’s being implemented on several sites, including Microsoft’s Docs.com and Yelp.com.

The letter from the four lawmakers says they’d like Facebook to make privacy-related changes “opt in” instead of turning them on by default and requiring users to opt out if they don’t want their information shared. A number of critics, including Search Engine Land writer Danny Sullivan, have complained about the same thing, saying Facebook should not have enabled instant personalization and other services by default, but should have allowed users to decide first whether they wanted to have those features.

The senators are also opposed to allowing websites and services to retain information on users that they receive from Facebook for longer than 24 hours, another recent change made by the company. And they dislike a new feature that adds users to “connection” pages based on topics or places they have expressed an interest in through their Facebook profile. “Social networking sites are a Wild West of the Internet; users need ability to control private information and fully understand how it’s being used,” they said in a news release.

Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told the Associated Press that the company has “powerful tools to give our users control over what information they want to share, when they want to share it and with whom,” but that not everyone has found it easy to discover what they’re opted into and what information they’re sharing — or how to turn it off (we recently posted a simple guide to doing this). Finding out what information is being shared through Facebook’s new open graph protocol and API is not easy, although one developer, who happens to work for Google’s charitable arm, has come up with a tool that shows you on a single page what information of yours Facebook is sharing.

In other privacy-related news, the Commerce Department recently launched an Internet Policy Task Force to investigate whether privacy policies are limiting innovation, and has asked average citizens as well as companies and public agencies to send comments on that issue to the government. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said the task force intends to explore “ways to address the challenges of the new Internet economy and society in a manner that preserves and enhances privacy protection.” It will also investigate cyber security and online copyright protection, the department said.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Why New Net Companies Must Shoulder More Responsibility

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Kevin Dooley

Hope you haven’t forgot about Samsung, they continue to release very good Android devices all around the world (we just hope some of them make their way here). Samsung has released the Galaxy A for South Korea. This device has similar specs to the original Galaxy but has a few new ones as well.

This handset is somewhat of a prelude to the main course, the quietly powerful Galaxy S. unlike the original Galaxy, this phone only has one hard key but it features an 800MHz CPU, 5MP camera, 8GB internal memory, video calling, T-DMB, Bluetooth 2.1, DivX support, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headphone jack and 1500mAh battery. It also has a 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED PLUS screen that claims to have more touch sensitivity and clarity than any other AMOLED before it. This phone also supports SKT’s T Store, Google apps and the Android Market. And this is another Android 2.1 device.

[via samsunghub]

What it is: The world’s cheapest car has a starting price of about $2000 in its home market of India. Pictured is a more expensive version for already-emerged markets.

Keep Reading: 2013 Tata Nano – Feature

No related posts.

Its now clear that the European debt crisis could take a huge chunk of the euro zone with it. Greece, Portugal, and Ireland are already in tough debt positions, while larger states like Spain and Italy might soon be.

What this could mean is the end of the currency union, as states are forced to depart because they can’t inflate their currencies to pay down their debt. While that approach would have its own problems for members, it could end the reach of the euro zone and significantly damage the European project all together.

Here are the results if Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy were to depart (using 2008 data):

GDP: 32% of all Euro zone GDP (subject to changes in euro valuation)

Population: 132,355,572 million people, 40% of the population of the euro zone.

Dark blue states represent euro zone members.

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Nokia’s not very happy right now. Just days before they officially announced their new flagship phone, the X8, someone managed to get their hands on an early prototype. Sound familiar?

Unlike Apple’s prototype iPhone, Nokia’s leaked X8 actually booted up, bearing its early software — and all of its early faults — for judgement.

Although Eldar’s early hands-on makes a passing mention or two of the device’s early state, Nokia says it isn’t enough:

“Buried deep down in the blogger’s salacious headlines about the software not being ready, was the most important point. This is a very early, pre-production prototype with dated software that is not yet ready. So the site’s comments that the software ‘felt premature’ is probably one of the more blindingly obvious things you will read this year.”

While they’re disappointed that the prototype was revealed in such a manner, they say it won’t let it affect the way things work at Nokia. While they avoid naming any names outright, they make a fairly transparent jab at Apple’s (generally) extreme security practices:

“However, whilst we are determined to protect our intellectual property and maintain the surprise when a shiny new gadget is introduced, we are not going to do so at the expense of the working conditions we enjoy here at Nokia. We are not the Secret Police, and we want to maintain our culture of openness”

In the end, they just want their prototype back, closing the post with “Now that the official news is out, we’d like our prototype back. Please.” Lets just hope Eldar doesn’t make them write a signed and dated letter.

What it is: A two-seat mid-engine Porsche that’s smaller and more affordable than the $48,550 Boxster.

Keep Reading: 2014 Porsche “Baby” Boxster – Feature

No related posts.

[JURIST] The Oklahoma State Senate on Tuesday voted 36-12 to override Governor Brad Henry’s veto of two anti-abortion bills that will now immediately become law. The first bill would prevent “wrongful life” lawsuits in which parents seek damages for a child born with a birth defect because the mother was unable to obtain an abortion. The second bill would require doctors to conduct a vaginal ultrasound at least one hour prior to an abortion while displaying and explaining the images. The 48-member senate just met the minimum of three-quarters majority required to override an executive veto. The senate’s vote comes one day after the House of Representatives voted 84-12 to override the veto.
The Oklahoma Senate voted to approve five anti-abortion bills last week, sending three to Henry for his approval and returning two to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Pending House approval, two additional bills would require a woman to answer 38 questions, including why she is seeking an abortion, and prohibit state health plans from covering elective abortions. The Oklahoma laws join another restrictive abortion law passed recently in Nebraska, which bans abortions after 20 weeks.

According to AdMob’s, mobile analytics company, Mobile Metrics Report for March 2010; Google Android is seeing more diversity among handsets in the market and also plagued by fragmentation woes. Below are key figures from the report:

• 11 devices accounted for 96% of Android OS traffic in March 2010, up from two devices in September 2009.
• The three primary versions of the Android OS all drove significant traffic in March 2010 – Android 1.5 (38%), Android 2.0/2.1 (35%) and Android 1.6 (26%).
• Three devices – the iPhone 3GS (39%), second generation iPod touch (25%) and iPhone 3G (20%) – generated 84% of total iPhone OS traffic.
• iPhone OS traffic share from the iPhone 3GS has increased from 30% in September 2009 to 39% in March 2010.

We find that iPhone does have fragmentation however not in the same ways as Android as apps work virtually the same across all versions of iPhone; whereas Android users on older versions may not be able to find some apps in the Market (due to target at higher Android versions). As carriers and handset manufacturers release updates, these fragmentation issues will subside.

[Via AdMob]

Posted by Rick Pearson at 12:32 p.m.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk won’t attend a planned state GOP fundraiser featuring Sarah Palin next month, campaign aides said today.

Kirk, a five-term North Shore congressman, sought but did not get supportive words from Palin during the Senate primary campaign. Instead of attending the May 12 fundraiser in Rosemont, Kirk will be in Washington for scheduled House votes, his campaign said.

The issue of Kirk soliciting support for Palin was a controversial one for the GOP nominee. Though Kirk cruised through a multi-candidate primary with 56 percent of the vote—his nearest challenger got 19 percent—some activists said that Kirk wasn’t conservative enough on social issues, such as abortion, to earn their support.



Last November, Kirk downplayed seeking Palin help for the primary, saying he was merely sending a memo as he does to a number of “prominent GOP people when they come into Chicago.” At the time, Palin was coming to Chicago for a taping of the "Oprah Winfrey Show."



Palin is scheduled to headline an Illinois Republican Party event with ticket prices as high as $25,000 for a half-hour private roundtable with the controversial former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor. The media will be shut out, just like it was last week at the big state Republican fundraiser featuring embattled National Republican Chairman Michael Steele.

Republican sources said when they learned Palin would be in Rosemont for her own events that day, they decided to try to piggyback with a state party fundraiser.

Kirk faces Democratic state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in November for the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.

Without doing anything particularly special, AOL’s stock has delivered one of the best year to date returns,  Mark Mahaney of Citigroup notes, in a preview of AOL’s earnings.

As you can see below, AOL is up 22% year-to-date. Meanwhile, Yahoo is only up 1.48%. Other Internet stocks are also up, but not as much as AOL.

AOL’s stock price is $28.30 as of this writing. Mark has a $29 price target and a rating of “hold” on the stock.

AOL reports earnings tomorrow morning (join us for LIVE coverage). We’ve pasted Mark’s cheat sheet for the quarter below.

Join the conversation about this story »

Most anybody can buy outdoor ads to hype an upcoming TV show, but History (formerly known as The History Channel) kicked it up a notch with iconic images from America: The Story of Us projected onto landmark buildings. (Having a banking behemoth sponsor the ambitious series probably wasn’t a bad idea.) The promotions—technically, they’re light shows from a company called Artlumiere—happened for seven straight days last week and bathed the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Los Angeles, Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Grand Central Terminal in New York in multistory images of the Statue of Liberty, the Old West, the Nina, the Pinta and that other ship. The birth-of-a-nation series, which launched Sunday night, has had considerable on- and off-air weight thrown behind it from History and sponsor Bank of America, which produced its own two-minute "story of us" mini-documentaries. Those will air throughout the 12-part series. Our brother blog, The Live Feed, has reported that the initial broadcast broke History ratings records with 5.7 million viewers, making it the network’s most-watched special of all time.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley

Home prices finally got a boost in February in comparison to last year, but not all major cities are out of the gutter.

Almost half are seeing their prices decline year-over-year, and peak to trough stats are still dismal.

See if your city is part of the price recovery, according to the newest release of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

San Francisco, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.36%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 12.05%

Peak To Trough: -36.9%

San Diego, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.77%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 7.55%

Peak To Trough: -36.43%

Los Angeles, California

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.2%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 5.35%

Peak To Trough: -36.2%

Washington, D.C.

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.04%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 5.07%

Peak To Trough: -28.94%

Denver, Colorado

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.18%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.69%

Peak To Trough: -8.54%

Cleveland, Ohio

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.02%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.43%

Peak To Trough: -15.42%

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.9%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 3.1%

Peak To Trough: -29.28%

Dallas, Texas

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.39%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 2.71%

Peak To Trough: -6%

Boston, Massachusetts

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.48%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 1.81%

Peak To Trough: -14.56%

Atlanta, Georgia

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.85%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -0.86%

Peak To Trough: -20.73%

Phoenix, Arizona

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.42%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -1.58%

Peak To Trough: -51%

Charlotte, North Carolina

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.38%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -2.43%

Peak To Trough: -11.58%

Chicago, Illinois

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.03%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -2.88%

Peak To Trough: -26.26%

New York, New York

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.15%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.14%

Peak To Trough: -21.1%

Miami, Florida

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.26%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.36%

Peak To Trough: -47.39%

Portland, Oregon

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -1.87%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -4.74%

Peak To Trough: -21.08%

Detroit, Michigan

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.9%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.3%

Peak To Trough: -43.89%

Seattle, Washington

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.78%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.58%

Peak To Trough: -23.33%

Tampa, Florida

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.31%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -5.98%

Peak To Trough: -42.24%

Las Vegas, Nevada

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): 0.14%

Annual Change (Y/Y): -14.62%

Peak To Trough: -55.76%

20-City Composite

Monthly Change
(Jan ’10 to Feb ’10): -0.1%

Annual Change (Y/Y): 0.7%

Peak To Trough: -29.25%

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Francia y Japón también hacen negocios en el mundo del automóvil. El grupo PSA, Citroën-Peugeot, y Mitsubishi han decidido unir sus fuerzas competitivas para crear un nuevo SUV que revolucione el mercado. El vehículo en cuestión estará basado en el Mitsubishi ASX y podría llegar a principios de 2012.

Este vehículo, destinado al mercado con mayor crecimiento en Europa, estará basado en una plataforma ya existente de Mitsubishi. A esta plataforma se le conoce por RVR en Japón y ASX en Europa. El coche tendrá diseños específicos para cada una de las marcas y presentará la opción de tracción a 2 y a 4 ruedas.

El volumen de producción que tienen previsto asumir tanto Peugeot como Citroën es de 50.000 unidades al año. En lo que respecta al grupo PSA pretenden equipar su versión con un motor diésel 1.6 HDi, lo que nos dejaría un más que respetable consumo de 4,7 litros por kilómetro.

Los intereses de cada compañía en esta operación son distintos. El grupo PSA pretende crecer en un mercado que todavía no domina y que probablemente crecerá en un 60% en todo el mundo hasta el año 2015. Mientras tanto, Mitsubishi pretende obtener economías de escala en su plataforma ASX.

Ambas compañías han demostrado en el pasado que pueden trabajar perfectamente juntas. Entre los proyectos que han llevado a cabo se encuentran los modelos Mitsubishi Outlander, Peugeot 4007 y Citroën C-Crosser en 2005, la construcción de una planta en Rusia y el lanzamiento a finales de 2010 de los coches eléctricos Peugeot iOn y Citroën C-Zero.

Vía | MotorTerra

As most of you know by now, police entered Jason Chen’s home, seizing his computers and gadgets. While the investigation’s in process, we can’t comment much on this. We stand by our colleague and our coverage of the lost iPhone. More »