It’s up to you to share your details with an application, but if you do not want to share your information, can you be sure that a friend that adds such an application will not pull your data without you knowing? I believe that no one would consent that a third party can agree on what you’re disagreeing to. This should be illegal but the terms of use and privacy policy from Facebook speak a quite different language (please find them below).

There is a natural risk with all social network platforms. Even though you’re not allowing to be tagged in pictures, but if your friend on the picture is tagged and your friend belongs to the network of your boss, parents, neighbours etc., you will be recognized (hopefully not in a compromising situation) without you knowing it. This is how social network work by nature (works as designed) and the only way of avoiding this risk is that you carefully avoid anyone making picture of you in a compromising situation (by the way you better should have ensured this behavior since your birth ). A phone call or an email to the person who posted this compromising picture should ensure (assuming that you have a social environment outside of a social net platform) that this picture is deleted. However, a look at facebook’s policies (again, please see below) stating that the Company usually backups every information once posted, makes it in theory impossible to get the right for the secure deletion of your information. The net never forgets anything …

There is one group page Let’s BOYCOTT The FACEBOOK TROJANS (or they call them APPLICATIONS…) on facebook trying to convince people to be very careful in the use of application and to ban them. But obviously not too many people are interested in and as such the danger of compromising your data will persist.

Nick O’Neill posted an interesting article on this flaw in Facebook’s privacy and he calls the phenomena “The Facebook Peer Group Effect“.

Besides the facebook application there is an increased risk of computer viruses, specialized in social network platforms. KoobFace is still active and facebook users should all be aware of it.

Social networks will be the new breeding ground for viruses and an excellent article on this subject can be read here. Programers of computer viruses have always been concentrating on high available platforms (e.g. Microsoft Windows). Social platforms will definitely be an extended area for them in 2009.

If you ever wanted to delete your facebook account (not only getting in closed, means putting it into an invisible frozen status), it might be worth to read this article (showing you what a nightmare it might become).

The following article is at least interesting enough for further information if the CIA gets in Your Face(book). Data mining is in general a hot topic and I do not believe that it will stop at our facebook contribution. Without getting paranoid, I feel a little uncomfortable as I do not know if they are interested in general anonymized data only. As one argument found the following contribution, which however is difficult to get confirmed. I’m looking forward to getting more information from people who already made some research on the credibility of this video, please feel free to use my comment page to post your thoughts or comments.

Personally I must say if this is true, so what? Every time I place something about me on a site, a blog, a forum, I’m accepting that it could be used in some way for other data purposes, and more than likely it is, is that something I should care about, is that just the way the modern world works? I’ve not personally researched the story behind the video, nor will I, as I’m not bothered, isn’t it the point that I’m sharing I’m an atheist, or I’m straight, or I am male, or I like music, with everyone?

However I’m concerned about the fact that someone who believes that he’s not spreading any personal information of his friends is basically exactly doing the latter. This is the main purpose of this posting, and I’m looking forward to hearing your voice on this matter. I’ll continue to be part of the facebook community - already for the sole reason to know what is happening on this platform - but I’ll be very limited (more limited as I have been) on the information I’ll share.

Excerpt of Terms of Use (version from 23rd September 2008):

§User Content Posted on the Site
You are solely responsible for the photos, profiles (including your name, image, and likeness), messages, notes, text, information, music, video, advertisements, listings, and other content that you upload, publish or display (hereinafter, “post”) on or through the Service or the Site, or transmit to or share with other users (collectively the “User Content”). You may not post, transmit, or share User Content on the Site or Service that you did not create or that you do not have permission to post. You understand and agree that the Company may, but is not obligated to, review the Site and may delete or remove (without notice) any Site Content or User Content in its sole discretion, for any reason or no reason, including User Content that in the sole judgment of the Company violates this Agreement or the Facebook Code of Conduct, or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of users or others. You are solely responsible at your sole cost and expense for creating backup copies and replacing any User Content you post or store on the Site or provide to the Company.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. Facebook does not assert any ownership over your User Content; rather, as between us and you, subject to the rights granted to us in these Terms, you retain full ownership of all of your User Content and any intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights associated with your User Content.

§Third Party Websites and Content
The Site contains (or you may be sent through the Site or the Service) links to other web sites (”Third Party Sites”) as well as articles, photographs, text, graphics, pictures, designs, music, sound, video, information, applications, software and other content or items belonging to or originating from third parties (the “Third Party Applications, Software or Content”). Such Third Party Sites and Third Party Applications, Software or Content are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Third Party Sites accessed through the Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content posted on, available through or installed from the Site, including the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions, reliability, privacy practices or other policies of or contained in the Third Party Sites or the Third Party Applications, Software or Content. Inclusion of, linking to or permitting the use or installation of any Third Party Site or any Third Party Applications, Software or Content does not imply approval or endorsement thereof by us. If you decide to leave the Site and access the Third Party Sites or to use or install any Third Party Applications, Software or Content, you do so at your own risk and you should be aware that our terms and policies no longer govern. You should review the applicable terms and policies, including privacy and data gathering practices, of any site to which you navigate from the Site or relating to any applications you use or install from the site.

Excerpt of Facebook Privacy Policy
§The Information We Collect
When you visit Facebook you provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Web Site use information collected by us as you interact with our Web Site.

When you register with Facebook, you provide us with certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your address, your gender, schools attended and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us.

When you enter Facebook, we collect your browser type and IP address. This information is gathered for all Facebook visitors. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using “cookies.” A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. These cookies terminate once the user closes the browser. By default, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID (but not your password) to make it easier for you to login when you come back to Facebook. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature.

When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your friend list. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

You post User Content (as defined in the Facebook Terms of Use) on the Site at your own risk. Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other Users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that User Content you post on the Site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.

Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on Facebook is a violation of the Facebook Terms of Service and should be reported to privacy@facebook.com .

If you choose to use our invitation service to tell a friend about our site, we will ask you for information needed to send the invitation, such as your friend’s email address. We will send your friend an email or instant message in your name inviting him or her to visit the site, and may send up to two reminders to them. Facebook stores this information to send invitations and reminders, to register a friend connection if your invitation is accepted, to allow you to see invitations you have sent, and to track the success of our referral program. Your friend may contact us at privacy@facebook.com to request that we remove this information from our database.

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

Warm Regards,
Dagmar & Jeannot Muller

I believe however that it shall be a human right that everyone has full control over his data and knows exactly who has the right to get legal access to them.

One of the major reasons of Facebook’s success story is the wealth of applications users can easily add to their profile pages:

Quizzes, little games, IQ tests, polls, etc. - there are thousands of these gadgets available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too. Most of today’s users (at less 90% of my friends/contacts) do not avoid spamming and they send out a recommendation for each and every application they install. Facebook growth is currently around 100K users a week(!) and almost everyone of them (including myself) has installed one of this applications.

I spent some time yesterday to have a look at the programming interface for Facebook. It’s not true that anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application, but I have to admit that it is not too complicated. I was quite surprised to see that the self programmed applications have to run on your own server and not on the Facebook platform. Even though this is a quite modern approach with the benefit of an excellent workload balancing, it has the clear risk that data are leaving the Facebook platform and can easily be stored outside of Facebook without the enduser really realising this fact. - I know that Facebook themselves teach their users to analyse very carefully which application to install, but let’s be honest, how many (especially non technically interested) users are influenceable by these footnotes and hints?

The issue and the danger of this gadget applications is that you can’t know what they are doing in the background: whatever they might look like, in the background, they can collect personal data and most important those of your friends, storing them in an own database on an own server or sending them out by emailing them to a different server.

When people add an application, unless they say otherwise (and again I bet that more than 99.9% of the users won’t decline), it is given access to most of the information in their profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.

Did you know that you were responsible for other people’s security?

I’m not a guru programer but I’m developing programs as a hobby and even though I do not know about any application misusing data it seems easy - really easy - for an average developer to do so. Because the applications run on a third-party serves, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it. Facebook’s terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.

In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future. If Facebook is right that they have efficient mechanisms in place to check for unusual behaviour of an application,an insecure application can spread like a (computer virus) and it might be too late waiting for a detection by Facebook.

1. Don’t subscribe to social networks
2. Assume that the personal information and photos you display will be publicly available and not just available to specific friends. Make your choice what to post based on this Golden Rule.
3. Strong Passwords, always! - It may seem obvious but make sure you use a strong password for your account. Also, I suggest to use a separate password for fast growing platforms like Facebook. The people who want to offend you are using successful platforms.
4. Secure your birth date - Birth dates are often required to validate your identity. Under Profile, you can choose to not display your birthday - you should at least not post your year of birth.
5. Privacy Profile Settings - I suggest setting the Profile Privacy > Basic to “only me” for items: Education Info, Work Info and Profile Privacy > Contact Information to “no one” for items: Mobile Phone, Land Phone, Current Address, Email. You may want to display your website address for advertising, but be than aware what further information your have already published on that platform.
6. Privacy Application Settings - Each Facebook application has similar settings to those of the Privacy settings. New applications are being added everyday. Its difficult to define a set policy. However, I suggest you remove any unwanted applications and/or limit there settings as required. It might be very useful in future to have spend this extra time on carefully reviewing the rights you give to an application.
7. Privacy Search Settings - Depending on your use of Facebook, you may not want to be publicly visible or you may want to limit what information is available to all users (i.e. your picture, friend list etc.). We recommend changing the search settings from “everyone” to “friends of friends”. You may also want not(!) to tick “view your friends list”.
8. Privacy News Feed and Mini-Feed Settings - Control what stories about you get published to your profile and to your friends’ News Feeds. You may not want to display information such as joined groups etc.
9. Joining Groups & Networks - be cautious when joining groups and which authorisations you give to the group.
10. Think carefully about who you allow to become your friend. Once you have accepted someone as your friend they will be able to access any information about you (including photographs) that you have marked as viewable by your friends. You can remove friends at any time should you change your mind about someone.
11. Show “limited friends” a cut-down version of your profile. You can choose to make people ‘limited friends’ who only have access to a cut-down version of your profile if you wish. This can be useful if you have associates who you do not wish to give full friend status to, or feel uncomfortable sharing personal information with.
12. Disable options, then open them one by one. Think about how you want to use Facebook. If it’s only to keep in touch with people and be able to contact them then maybe it’s better to turn off the bells and whistles. It makes a lot of sense to disable an option until you have decided you do want and need it, rather than start with everything accessible.

‘whishlistbutler.com’ is slightly different! Besides the fact that the side is run by a Luxembourgian citizen on a Swiss server should already be argument enough that his service is just different and by the end secure and cheap - or at least that you will get value for money ;-).

‘whishlistbutler.com’ was originally designed to set up and manage a “private” wishlist for the purpose of a wedding gift registry. As the idea worked out having been excepted by a large audience the service was continued and can these days be used for the same purpose or a baby shower, a birthday wish list, a to-do list if you do not care about money, etc.

You can set up a wish list in less than a minute and share this list with all your colleagues, friends and relatives, basically with whomever is in the possession of an email.

The main advantage of ‘wishlistbutler.com’ is that it is not(!) bounded to any specific webstore.

‘whishlistbutler.com’ has been kept as simple as possible, and you are not required to create a user account. Just copy the link provided after the creation of the wishlist and send it to your friends, allowing them to see all your wishes. A second “secret” weblink is provided to you for administration purposes.

Your friends can grant the wishes and provide you with feedback if they want to do so. Granted wishes are marked as “taken” in the wish list.

The service is free of charge, but in case you need a specific and a ’serious’ wish list you can donate a few bucks to the author and you will get a version without any advertisements.

‘whishlistbutler.com‘ is a great idea and of pretty much value to me. I wish the idea will be spread and I’m looking forward to seeing how things are developing and going for this service in 2009.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg is to be stripped of his executive power to veto laws passed by parliament after threatening to block a Bill to allow Euthanasia in the tiny state a week ago. The hereditary sovereign, 53, who is the last Grand Duke in the world, caused a constitutional crisis when he gave notice that he objected to Luxembourg following its neighbors Belgium and the Netherlands in permitting euthanasia before a second-reading vote in the Chamber of Deputies next week.

The Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker will propose a change to the constitution to downgrade the role of the Grand Duke to promulgating laws with his signature rather than approving them, giving him a purely ceremonial duty in line with the other European constitutional monarchies.

Grand Duke Henri’s ethical stance on euthanasia caused the worst constitutional crisis in Luxembourg since Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide was forced to abdicate in 1919 for being too pro-German during the First World War.

The first reading of the euthanasia Bill was approved by 30 votes to 26 in February and the intervention by the Grand Duke was seen by some as an attempt to influence the final vote.

Jean-Claude Juncker said: “I understand the Grand Duke’s problems of conscience. But I believe that if the parliament votes in a law, it must be brought into force.”

The only other time that a sovereign in Luxembourg has blocked a law was in 1912, when the Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide refused to sign an education Bill.

UPDATE:
Pro-Life World Coming to the Defence of Luxembourg Monarch’s Stand against Euthanasia

This service is offered by www.jibjab.com/. All rights reserved by JibJab Media Inc.

Plastic Logic is manufacturing in Dresden, Germany a new digital-book reader which is super thin and attractive. Target audience is the business. The reader, which has yet to be named, will display various types of media such as newspapers, e-books and magazines using the E Ink electronic-display technology seen today in similar devices.

Plastic Logic’s device is as wide and long as a sheet of A4-sized paper. The actual display area measures 10.7 diagonal inches.

Plastic Logic’s reader demonstrates a balance between size and convenience. Though in the gadget world, much of the craze has been over “smaller and more powerful” devices, many might appreciate that Plastic Logic’s reader is longer, wider and thinner than comparable devices, making it easier to read and carry around.

The device’s backplane is composed of plastic which could eventually be made flexible once third-party manufacturers adapt their electronics to sustain bending, the display itself is flexible. On the front, the device features a touchscreen for turning pages, menu navigation and typing notes with a virtual keyboard.

First version of Plastic Logic’s reader is not yet Wi-Fi-enabled. It currently features a Micro-USB port and Bluetooth connectivity to sync media from your computer, but the company said it has plans to eventually implement Wi-Fi features.

The reader’s battery life lasts about a week because there is no backlight: What you see on the screen is a reflection, so you’d have to read off this during the day or with a light turned on; the only time the device would draw power is when you load a new page or fiddle with the touchscreen menu.

Plastic Logic expects to release its first reader in early 2009. Pricing has not been announced either, but officials said the reader would be “priced competitively” with devices such as the Kindle from Amazon.

This year’s theme is “Lead – Empower – Deliver“.

Designating leadership as the theme provides an opportunity to highlight both political leadership and celebrate leadership that has been witnessed at all levels of society. To mark the day, the United Nations Secretary General, the Executive Director of UNAIDS and UNAIDS Cosponsors and partners speak out in special World AIDS Day statements.

World AIDS Day Message from UNAIDS Executive Director Dr Peter Piot

“Presidents and prime ministers, doctors and lawyers, scientists and schoolteachers, chief executives and trade union leaders, religious groups and communities, and – critically – people living with HIV, are coming together in a brilliant coalition that has proved that, with clear targets and strong commitment, we can move mountains.”

For those who know already some basics of Luxembourgish, the online spellchecker might be of precious help and last but not least the attached document “Eng kleng Hëllef fir Lëtzebuergesch ze schreiwen” gives an overview on some basics.

http://spellchecker.lu/ is one other useful resource to get more familiar with the Luxembourgian language. The side http://spellchecker.lu/download/openoffice/ offers a free spellchecker for the current version 3.x of OpenOffice.org.