Posts under ‘Social Networking’

How safe is your twitter account username? Today I discovered that Twitter transferred the account #girlgeeks to the trade mark owner of the name even though the latter had only registered a logo mark incorporating the words (see image) a year ago.  A logo mark does not give exclusive rights over the word mark. What’s [...]

You may have heard of voucher websites such as vouchercodes.co.uk or other offer-based sites.  One such business that is causing a buzz is Groupon. What is Groupon? Groupon is a voucher website with a difference. It is entirely unique in its own concept of bargains. Instead of giving subscribers run-of the-mill discounts such as ‘241 [...]

Organising big events involving members of the public from all over the world has been transformed by social media. In particular social media has become a powerful tool for organising protests and broadcasting responses to government policies. Discussing the student protests with my daughter who is currently in year 2 at University, I thought it [...]

Now, with the availability of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, employers can learn a lot more about potential employees than was previously possible. Whilst before, a resume and references were the critical ways to screen candidates, now employers can find out a lot more about people they are thinking of hiring simply by [...]

Copyright is a hot topic at the moment, especially following the PM’s announcement that UK copyright law is to be reviewed with a view to potentially incorporating fair use provisions along similar lines to those in place in the US.  This blog has covered copyright online a number of times before, in the context of [...]

Since it’s birth the Internet has relied upon the interaction of its users for content – now social media and Web 2.0 technologies have propelled user generated content to the forefront, and concern is mounting over the impact of allowing people to post material online anonymously. Reuters recently became the latest site to prohibit anonymous [...]

An increasing number of people are getting their news online rather than from newspapers, or television. Mobile devices, and the proliferation of wi-fi have made it easier than ever for the tech-savvy to stay on top of current events, but the move away from traditional media is considerable cause for concern for newsrooms around the [...]

Facebook’s new ‘places’ application has sparked another debate over privacy. The new feature, which arrived today for UK users, encourages people on Facebook to share their location with other members of the social networking site. Although those who do share their location with others choose to do so, there is a concern that encouragement to [...]

The popular social networking site Facebook, valued in the billions of dollars, is facing legal action brought by a plaintiff who claims to be entitled to the lion’s share of the business.  The claim alleges that Paul Ceglia paid Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to develop the site in exchange for $1,000.  The contractual agreement which [...]

Recent online campaigns by Facebook users, such as ‘Quit Facebook Day’ illustrates the uneasiness and increasing lack of trust of Facebook as a custodian of people’s private lives. At the end of April this year four US senators sent a complaint letter to Facebook raising the alarm about the growing exposure of users, the complexity and bias of their privacy settings. In July 2009 Canada’s Privacy Commissioners Office found Facebook in contravention of their privacy laws and a request for investigation of Facebook was made by the EPIC to the Federal Trade Commission on grounds of Unfair Deceptive Trade Practices.