Last week I had the honor and privilege of participating in The Society of Digital Agencies' annual member event in Las Vegas. Fascinating stuff from brilliant people.

But one particular presentation—actually, it was more of a story—was so important, so hard-hitting, that it demands both repetition and your attention...

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down its decision in Fox Television Stations, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission. If you're an advocate for free speech (and really, who isn't?), then rejoice!! The court just overturned the FCC's rule that prohibited the broadcasting of indecent speech over the airwaves.

This is great news. Really, it is. Why—because I utter a curse word every now and then? Well, perhaps...but I digress. This is great news because the FCC has never been able to come up with a consistent, enforceable policy when it comes to restricting indecent speech. The FCC's enforcement policy has been used as a cutting, serrated weapon against some people (can you say, Howard Stern), yet has remained steadfastly sheathed when other individuals clearly deserved to be targeted by the FCC.
<< MORE >>

Facebook is about to up the ante in the arena of location-based mobile apps.  Later this month, Facebook will enable its users to report their physical locations using Facebook’s mobile app.  (It's a bit of a tough break for Foursquare and others, since Facebook sports a vastly superior and scalable service, top-notch branding and an immense customer base.  Other location-based apps will either have to innovate, or die.)

I haven’t seen Facebook's GPS-enabled app yet, but given Facebook’s sordid history of less-than-clear privacy policies, I feel it my blog-given duty (cue patriotic music here...) to tell you what Facebook can and cannot do when it comes to revealing your physical location to other Facebook users, or to the world at large.

Here’s the deal: Facebook can do whatever it wants to do with your subscriber information.  Let me repeat that, in case I wasn't clear.  Facebook can do whatever it wants.  It's Facebook's world, and you're living in it.  Sort of.

Facebook can tell the world who you are, where you are, what you’re doing on Facebook, and what your friends are doing—with one exception: Facebook must follow its own published privacy rules.

Funny thing, Facebook has changed its privacy rules almost every year since 2005.  If you think that's funny, then you're going to love this: Facebook's Privacy FAQ page is 45,000 words long.  Seriously, it is.  Check out the excellent interactive that the NY Times created about Facebook's ever-changing privacy policy HERE.

When it comes to privacy, Facebook has two options.  Option one is to simply have no privacy policy whatsoever.  To be clear: this is NOT the option that Facebook chose, but just for kicks, let's talk about this option for a moment.  If Facebook never had a privacy policy, then it could do whatever it wanted to do with your information.  Put another way, if Facebook didn't bind itself to a privacy policy, it could share or distribute your information with impunity. 

Option two (which is the option that Facebook elected to follow) is to create, post and enforce a privacy policy.  But here's the catch: if a company posts a privacy policy and induces subscribers to join its site on the basis of that policy, then the company MUST strictly abide by its policy.  If a company fails to abide by its posted privacy policy, it can be sued by the Federal Trade Commission, or any one (or all) of the state attorneys general,  or by private litigants—-or all three, simultaneously.  Toys 'R Us and DoubleClick are two examples of companies that have been sued for violating the terms of their posted privacy policies. 

My (strong) suggestion is that you carefully read Facebook's latest version of its privacy policy (currently weighing in at a bloated 5,830 words) BEFORE you download and use its GPS-enabled mobile app.  You can find the current version of Facebook's privacy policy (last revised on April 22, 2010) HERE.

I'm not saying you won't use the app anyway—I'm just saying that you should be aware of how Facebook intends to use your information.  After all, knowledge is power, right?  Then again, this is Facebook's world......

Every now and then, a law is passed that actually (i) has merit, (ii) is tailored to resolve a problem that needs to be fixed, and (iii) should be enforced. It's rare to see a new law satisfy all three factors, so when such a law comes along, I feel it my blog-based duty to report on it.  

The place: Washington State.

The problem:  Companies fail to properly protect credit card data, which causes banks ...