sam houston other blog: Weekly Wrap-up: Not on Facebook, Google Drive and Path's Privacy Issues

Sunday, 12 February 2012

Weekly Wrap-up: Not on Facebook, Google Drive and Path's Privacy Issues

Alicia Eler explores the "Not On Facebook" movement. Jon Mitchell explains why Google Drive won't be a Dropbox clone. Path uploads your entire address book to their servers without permission. All of this and more in the ReadWriteWeb Weekly Wrap-up.

After the jump you'll find more of this week's top news stories on some of the key topics that are shaping the Web - Location, App Stores and Real-Time Web - plus highlights from some of our six channels. Read on for more.

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Now is the Time to Quit Facebook

The number of people quitting Facebook is still small, but they are a vocal minority. Alicia Eler explores why they are leaving, shares the farewell stories of a few and explains why they felt a need to band together. Read Now is the Time to Quit Facebook to learn more about the "not on Facebook" movement.

Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox

Some may be expecting the fabled Google Drive to compare closely to Apple's iCloud or Dropbox, but Jon Mitchell explains why he expects the long rumored product to be a very different beast. Check out
Fabled Google Drive Won't Be Another Dropbox to learn more.

The Price of Free: Path Uploads Entire Address Book To Its Servers

Path has gotten a great deal of attention because it has a great user experience, but this week it got some bad press over a privacy issue. You might not expect the app to upload your entire address book to it's servers, but that's exactly what one smart hacker discovered. Path has since apologized but there is a great deal of damage done. Is the price of a free app worth the loss of privacy? Learn more about Path's privacy issue in The Price of Free: Path Uploads Entire Address Book To Its Servers.

From the comments:

Alan Langford - "The open source community has long distinguished between free as in no cost, and free as in freedom. One can expect that anything in the commercial sphere that comes at no monetary cost will do so by restricting one or more freedoms."

Tiago Sartor - "There's saying that goes like this: if something is free, then you are the product."

More Top Posts:

First Glimpses of Office 15 Are Minus the Ribbon

As Microsoft adopts a new usage model with elements gleaned from the "Metro" style, will Office be moving away from the ribbon? The first clips of the new Office in action deliberately obfuscate the answer. More

Since 2009, Mobile Internet Usage Has Doubled Every Year

The growth of the mobile Web is on a steady rise. While pundits throw around words like "explosive" and "outrageous" the more precise word is probably "consistent." According to analytics firm StatCounter, users accessing the Web through mobile devices has almost doubled every year since 2009. In its latest report, StatCounter says that global Internet usage through mobile devices rose to 8.5%, nearly doubling the 2011 figure of 4.3%. More

New iPhone, iPad and Android Apps for January 2012

2012 started with a flourish of new apps across iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for app publishers but the follow up in January was equally impressive. That is a testament to the growing app ecosystem and the number of developers starting to program for mobile platforms. We take a look at some of our favorite new apps from last month below. More

Q&A: Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley on What He's Learning From Twitter and What's Next

Foursquare, about to celebrate its third birthday, is big but not huge. It has signed up 15 million users, hired over 100 employees and now boasts several million check-ins per day. That is impressive work for three years, but it must keep growing. More

Iran Blocks HTTPS, Cutting Off Gmail, Yahoo and Other Major Sites

The Iranian government isn't exactly known as a champion of free speech and access to information. Thus, it's never shocking to hear about Internet censorship in the country, the state of which appears to be getting worse all the time.

Today, news surfaced that the country is blocking access to websites that use HTTPS. That means that a number of popular, secure websites like Google, Gmail, Yahoo and even online banking sites are inaccessible. More

Microsoft Looks For Ways To Use Kinect In Business Applications [UPDATED]

The company launched Kinect for Windows this month, which is the first Kinect sensor licensed for commercial use. Microsoft Dynamics, the company's unit that develops enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management (CRM) software applications, is currently exploring business scenarios that could benefit from the use of Kinect technology. More

Facebook Bans Breast-Feeding Photos

Breasts. They're complicated.

Facebook states that breast-feeding pictures are okie dokie, just as long as there's no "exposed breast" that doesn't feature the child actively nursing. In other words, if there's no suckling, there's no posting. Today breast-feeding activists are using Facebook to coordinate "nurse-ins" outside of of the company's headquarters worldwide, including its homebase Menlo Park headquarters. More

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