[Air-L] Privacy Buzz

[Aziz Douai]

Hi everyone,

I guess I am one of the lurkers on the listserv, but here goes my first
contribution: Buzz. If you have used the new google social network service,
how do you feel about the seeming violation of privacy? A few days ago, I
decline my Gmail's insistence on adding trying the new feature/service. Now,
the New York Times has a great article (Critics Say Google Invades Privacy
with New Service:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/technology/internet/13google.html) on how
users' rights to privacy appear to have been violated. The article raises
the interesting question of how totalitarian regimes may use the service to
suppress political dissent. Google's rhetoric and carefully constructed
image following its row with China is put to test.

Anyway, I am curious as to how AIR members have found the feature with
regard to both privacy and security.

Cheers,

Aziz

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Aziz Douai, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Communication Program
Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
2000 Simcoe Street North
Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4
E-mail: aziz.douai at uoit.ca/ azizdouai at gmail.com

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"A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring
it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both."  James
Madison, 1822

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