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By Neptune Moon, October 13, 2010 11:07 am

The Wall Street Journal has a fantastic series all about this topic – it is definitely worth the read.

The article that originally caught my eye was addressing the topic of data scraping and its pervasiveness. Most of us think that only some of what we might post online is vulnerable to being captured and attributed to us, right? Not so fast! We all know that Google has tons of information in its database about what we search for, and most of us don’t give it a second thought. We also all know that if you create an account with a web site, that company has your particulars.

But what about the stuff you post on a site behind a login, such as Facebook – that is private, right? You have complete control over who can see your postings through the site’s privacy settings… or do you? I’m not just picking on Facebook here, the data scraping is happening over the entire web. I’m using Facebook as an example because it is so widely used. Companies often engage services that help them to find information online about prospective employees, including “private” posts. The WSJ article highlighted a particular case where a marketing company was scraping a private patient discussion board.

Pretty unnerving stuff. I guess the old adage “never put anything into writing you wouldn’t want to have to admit to later” now goes a step further. Don’t post anything online that you don’t want to have to answer for later. To their credit, most web sites are actively mounting defenses against this type of scraping, but much like viruses, it is a constant game of catch up and innovation.

So what’s the bottom line? Most of us know that when we post something online, even if the site is “private” or password protected that there is always some risk of the data being accessed by unauthorized persons. In exchange for easy communication we have ceded some ground on the privacy front – it is a deal we are generally willing to make these days. But it is certainly worth thinking about…

Managing your online data and your online reputation gets more complicated by the day!

Access the WSJ section here.

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By Neptune Moon, June 24, 2010 9:15 am

There was a ruling in a major lawsuit between Google (owner of YouTube) and Viacom this week over copyright infringement. But the case is about more than simple copyright infringement in the video and online world – it brings up a much larger question. In today’s world where social media is bleeding into nearly all web entities, just who is ultimately responsible for what users post?

You can read more about the case itself here, but I think this is a really interesting question to consider. Google’s stance is basically that as long as they have a policy in place that specifically states that users may not post anything they don’t have the rights to post and if they take stuff down when notified by the copyright holder of an infringement, that is enough. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act states as much and was cited in the ruling.

But what about materials that are not copyright protected? What about user opinions or reviews that may cause damage to you or a third party? Where does the responsibility lie to monitor this type of posted material? As social media outlets continue to increase in usage and popularity, and as more and more sites add some type of commenting or user-based interactive elements to their web entities, this question will become increasingly important.

Having a clear Acceptable Use & Terms of Service policy is critical. Just as having a Privacy Policy is critical in protecting yourself if you collect any data from users, having a well thought out Acceptable Use & Terms of Service policy is a step you should not skip if you’re inviting users to comment and/or generate and post content. By having a clearly stated policy about what is permissible and what is not, you strengthen your ability to not only monitor, but also remove offensive, defamatory or otherwise problematic materials from your site(s).