Links for February 17th 2010 through February 19th 2010:

• PleaseRobMe website reveals dangers of social networks [BBC News] – “A website called PleaseRobMe claims to reveal the location of empty homes based on what people post online. The Dutch developers told BBC News the site was designed to prove a point about the dangers of sharing precise location information on the internet. The site scrutinises players of online game Foursquare, which is based on a person’s location in the real world. PleaseRobMe extracts information from players who have chosen to post their whereabouts automatically onto Twitter. […] “It’s basically a Twitter search – nothing new,” said Mr Van Amstel. “Anyone who can do HTML and javascript can do this. You could almost laugh at how easy it is.” He said that the site would remain live but stressed it was not created to encourage crime. “The website is not a tool for burglary,” he said. “The point we’re getting at is that not long ago it was questionable to share your full name on the internet. We’ve gone past that point by 1000 miles.””
• Westpac Writes ‘Oh So Very Over It’ On Twitter Account [Brisbane Times] – Apparently people tweeting for corporate brands showing emotion is newsworthy: “Who said banks were heartless? Even after posting a $1.6 billion first quarter profit, Westpac was a melancholy bank shortly before 4pm today. “Oh so very over it today,” Westpac announced to the world via its Twitter account. The sullen tweet spread like wildfire and tugged at heart strings across the social networking site. […] Concerned about the bank’s well-being, brisbanetimes.com.au contacted Westpac’s media relations department to make sure it was OK. Within two minutes of making that phone call at 4.26pm, the Tweet was pulled from the site, but not before thousands saw it. brisbanetimes.com.au hopes to be able to report on Westpac’s emotional state, as soon as a response to our queries is received.”
• Google Buzz ‘breaks privacy laws’ says watchdog [BBC News] – “A leading privacy group has urged US regulators to investigate Google’s new social networking service Buzz, one week after its launch. The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) has made its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) It says that Buzz – which is part of Google’s Gmail service – is “deceptive” and breaks consumer protection law. The search giant has twice made changes to the service to placate an outcry from users about privacy concerns. Canadian officials are also looking at whether Buzz violates privacy laws. “Google still hasn’t gone far enough,” Epic’s consumer privacy counsel Kim Nguyen told BBC News.”Twitter is a social networking site and people know what they are signing up for. With Gmail, users signed up for an e-mail service not a social networking service,” said Ms Nguyen. “Despite all the changes, they still do not give users a meaningful way to opt into it.” Buzz was automatically rolled out to Gmail’s 176 million users.”
• Google boss says ‘nobody was harmed’ by Buzz debacle [guardian.co.uk] – Isn’t it a bit late to chide user “confusion” and just move forward with “we’re sorry”? “Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has suggested that users who complained about privacy invasions by Google Buzz were subject to “confusion”. “I would say that we did not understand how to communicate Google Buzz and its privacy,” he said. “There was a lot of confusion when it came out on Tuesday, and people thought that somehow we were publishing their email addresses and private information, which was not true. I think it was our fault that we did not communicate that fact very well, but the important thing is that no really bad stuff happens in the sense that nobody’s personal information was disclosed.”