February 2012

The Privacy Bill of Rights won't have much immediate impact on you and your computer. The new Do Not Track system will be more noticeable. Those buttons should start showing up soon. But there too, the way it’s carried out is far from simple. “If you ask the typical consumer, what do you think it means to track, they would probably say well, if the company is following me around and looking at what I'm doing, that's tracking,” says Carnegie Mellon University professor Lorrie Cranor. “But, the industry says, well, there are a lot of times that we need to follow you around and look at what you're doing in order to provide services you want and need. Like, if you're on a retailer and you put stuff in your shopping basket, we need to know that. So, we're not going to call that tracking. And then they have a whole list of things that they say we're not going to call tracking. And, depending on whether you're a consumer or whether you're Facebook or Google or a retailer, you probably have different interests in what should be tracking and what's not tracking.”

Google has filed documents with the Securities Exchange Commission in preparation for the sale of its entire stake in the troubled Clearwire Corporation.

Having spent $500 million to acquire a 6.5 percent share back in 2008, Google is now cutting its losses and looking to sell up for approximately $47 million. The proposed $1.60 price per share dramatically undercuts the current $2.27 level, and Google's move will undoubtedly put even more pressure on the already financially constrained company. The SEC documentation explains Google's exit from Clearwire as an act of rebalancing its portfolio of investments, but a more candid assessment would be that Google expects Clearwire to sink beneath its mountain of debt and is getting out while it can.

Last year, researchers examined Facebook profiles of 200 students at the University of Washington and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some 30 percent posted updates that met the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for a symptom of depression, reporting feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, insomnia or sleeping too much, and difficulty concentrating. Their findings echo research that suggests depression is increasingly common among college students. Some studies have concluded that 30 to 40 percent of college students suffer a debilitating depressive episode each year. Yet scarcely 10 percent seek counseling. “You can identify adolescents and young adults on Facebook who are showing signs of being at risk, who would benefit from a clinical visit for screening,” said Dr. Megan A. Moreno, a principal investigator in the Facebook studies and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

[Commentary] Movies, video games and Facebook friends soon will be only an arm's length away for drivers as they hurtle down the freeway in the next generation of cars from Detroit. Thank goodness the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reaching for the "hold" button.

The agency has proposed guidelines -- not laws; at least not yet -- for carmakers to make some touch-screen dashboard devices automatically shut down once a car starts moving. This would save lives, guaranteed. Even if you don't think you'd have a problem, imagine teenagers behind the wheel with the temptation of Internet access. Distracted driving is an ever-present risk, whether it's from chattering kids in the back seat, cellphone conversations or that mesmerizing GPS screen. But the coming dashboard devices would deliver a whole new level of eye candy and brain entrapment.