Posts by GuyClapperton which have been Voted Up

It is. But when it comes to its news service, having a human sanity-checking what comes out of it was an excellent, not to say essential, idea.

Facebook has been involved in meetings this week talking to employees about their concerns over user privacy. The issue is that people searching the web can now see Facebook members' profiles, unless they have protected them, whether the person doing the search is a Facebook member or not.

Previously the only people who could see these profiles were Facebook members. A fun fact is that the privacy policy as amended to let Web surfers see it is now longer than the US Constitution.

Facebook is coming under pressure from civil liberties groups as well as users to tear the policy up and start again, and particularly to make it easier for people to handle the complex privacy settings on the Facebook pages.

Here's the thing: if you don't want people to know something it has always been a bad idea to put it online. The real difficulty, and not something that's received as much coverage, is that people have been losing control over their own identities and images on social networks. A Facebook profile might be a fine thing for executive A, until he or she finds that someone took a picture of them drunk at a party a few years ago and has tagged it with their name so it shows up on their profile. The fact that they have been teetotal for 12 months doesn't affect the picture's presence, and if whoever uploaded it hardly ever logs on then it's unlikely to be moved anytime soon.

This is happening and it's losing people job opportunities - to me this is much more sinister than people being able to find stuff I've put on the Internet voluntarily. After all, if anyone could find information previously simply by joining Facebook - to which there is no barrier - letting them find it on the open Internet is hardly a major change.

I think you need to elaborate a little - I'm happy to be proven wrong or disagreed with, but an insult from someone who can't punctuate 'you're' is difficult to respond to intelligently.

Seriously, what are your substantive points? I'm happy to listen and welcome the feedback.

It's official - Amazon is finally going to bring the Kindle e-book reader to countries other than the US, including my own UK. Thing is, there are going to be issues.

The first is a practical one. In the absence of any specific announcement to the contrary, we're all going to be ordering the American version and importing it for the moment. American readers might shrug and ask what the problem is as long as we can get the voltage right and recharge the thing. Well, yes, up to a point, kind of, and other half-hearted agreement; but if this thing carries an American sim card then guess what, we're going to be hit with international data roaming charges every time we download a book. Amazon is going to have to clarify this if it isn't the case, or amend it with deals with local carriers if it is.

If there is an issue then you have to ask why release internationally before those carrier deals are in place, and I may have an answer. Rumour has been rife for many months that Apple is ready to release some sort of tablet computer, which will act as a media/entertainment machine. Apple, you'll recall if you're outside the US, has done a brilliant job of blocking Microsoft every time there appeared to be a gap in the international market for the Zune media player. There'd be a new iPod, a new iPhone, something to block the gadget market completely just when you'd swear the time was right for a European Zune. If analysts are right and Apple is going to use the next MacWorld Expo to launch something that will do so much more than act as a reader, then it's going to block the New Year market and pull off the same trick again. Amazon had better make the best of the Christmas market before it emerges because the standalone reader could be a dead duck within months.

That logic holds good only if you regard Apple as the ultimate marketing big-bad, and there have certainly been signs of a tide turning against the company. But past history suggests you don't underestimate Steve Jobs and co's ability to create whole new product categories and leave the mass market with the impression that they're the first. The Amazon launch, in which non-Americans have to order kit from the US and are promised there'll be a more localised experience sometime, looks rushed and maybe forced; I can only think of the one reason why this should be so.

A judge has said a lawsuit can be delivered via Twitter. It's an interesting case, an odd idea and a pity there are going to be so many logistical obstacles.

The scenario is simple. Someone is posing as a (real) right-wing blogger - they've effectively 'borrowed' his name for a Twitter account and are putting notes up that the actual blogger finds objectionable. In British law, and I have no doubt other territories will have their equivalents, there is a thing called 'passing off', which means I can't pass myself off as someone else, they can't pass themselves off as me, and soforth. So the blogger doesn't need a trademark, he's protected.

Thing is, the Tweeter hasn't identified himself. So the judge has said the lawsuit can be delivered via Twitter - a link will take the Tweeter through to the text of the injunction.

Yeah...and then what? There are a great many things that can happen and only one of those involves the perpetrator actually being caught. The most likely is that he or she will ignore the lawsuit. If he or she can't be found then there's nothing to gain from coming forward. The second is that they shut the account down and start again under another name, and continue this sort of Twitter-tag for a while. The third is that he or she gets caught but denies having seen the Tweet with the lawsuit link (maybe you can prove someone opened a Tweet but I can assure you I have Tweetdeck running on my computer all the time so about 1500 people could 'prove' I'd opened their Tweets without any certainty that I'd read them unless I'd replied).

In fact the more I look at this, the less enforceable it appears and the more objections to Twitter as a means of delivery start to look. I'd be delighted if someone could prove me wrong but I just don't see how this can fly.

Details of the case are in a report here.