The National Law Journal takes a look at Crispin v. Christian Audigier Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. Lexis 52832 (C.D. Calif. May 26, 2010), a recent court decision (pdf) that the Journal says “appears to be the first to apply the Stored Communications Act, enacted in 1986, to content on today’s social networking sites.”

The plaintiff, an artist named Buckley Crispin, claimed that the defendants, Christian Audigier Inc. and its sublicensees, used his artwork in violation of their oral agreement. The defendants sought information from MySpace and Facebook, including Crispin’s subscriber information and all communications by Crispin referring to any of the defendants. A federal magistrate declined to quash certain of the defendants’ subpoenas, rejecting among other arguments that the information they sought was protected by the SCA.

The district court’s decision offered answers to two key questions. First, the holding explains that the SCA’s protections reach at least some of the content hosted on social networking sites and that such content will be precluded from discovery from those sites. Second, the decision suggests that privacy settings matter. The private messaging features of social networking sites were protected because the court considered them to be as private as e-mail. Moreover, the court found that the SCA’s protections applied to wall postings and comments only to the extent that those communications were not available to the general public. Read more »

The Los Angeles Times reports that 24 Hour Fitness gyms are installing fingerprint readers to identify members and getting rid of membership ID cards. Anyone who opts out of the fingerprint identification system can show government-issued photo ID cards to enter the gyms. (Last week, I posted on fingerprint scanners that the Montgomery County Department of Recreation plans to begin using this fall.)

With gym memberships down across the fitness industry, the giant 24 Hour Fitness chain is taking a new cost-cutting approach to identifying its gym members — fingerprints.

The 428-gym chain, which issued more than 1 million plastic membership cards and key ring IDs last year, is converting to a system that identifies members by scanning the individual ridges on fingertips. [...]

Discontented customers have used Web forums and blogs to sound off against it, and filed grievances with privacy advocacy organizations. Read more »

Research in Motion (RIM) has been dealing with the threat that its BlackBerry smartphones would be banned in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India and other countries because of security concerns. There were reports that Saudi Arabia and RIM had reached a preliminary deal, which raised security and privacy questions about the BlackBerry messaging service, which promises a “secure” e-mail system. However, RIM has faced problems in negotiations with India, with the possibility of a ban for its BlackBerry cellphones in the country. Now, the Associated Press reports that RIM has received a 60-day reprieve from India for its mobile phones.

The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement it would review the situation in 60 days after the Department of Telecommunications studies the feasibility of routing BlackBerry services through a server in India.

India wants greater access to encrypted corporate e-mails and instant messaging, though it remains unclear precisely what concessions Research In Motion agreed to in order to avert the ban. [...] Read more »

The New York Times takes a look at online targeted behavioral advertising and how your shopping habits can follow you from one site’s advertisers to another’s.

People have grown accustomed to being tracked online and shown ads for categories of products they have shown interest in, be it tennis or bank loans.

Increasingly, however, the ads tailored to them are for specific products that they have perused online. While the technique, which the ad industry calls personalized retargeting or remarketing, is not new, it is becoming more pervasive as companies like Google and Microsoft have entered the field. And retargeting has reached a level of precision that is leaving consumers with the palpable feeling that they are being watched as they roam the virtual aisles of online stores. [...] Read more »

The Boston Globe takes a look at “reputation managers” — people who work to improve their clients’ Internet reputation.

Such services not only exist, but are becoming increasingly popular with people who seek to hide negative online news stories, bury personal information on networking websites, or simply boost the visibility of their personal profiles.

Kirsten Dixson is a personal branding strategist and online reputation manager in Exeter, N.H. She charges between $2,000 and $10,000 for her services, noting, “Your online reputation has a lot to do with your personal brand.’’

Dixson compares one’s online reputation to a credit score — something to monitor and improve. She says “digital dirt’’ — anything that isn’t relevant to how someone wants to be known on the Web — can hurt people. [...] Read more »

In the last few weeks, Research in Motion (RIM) faced the threat that its BlackBerry smartphones would be banned in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, because of security concerns. There were reports that Saudi Arabia and RIM had reached a preliminary deal, which raised security and privacy questions about the BlackBerry messaging service, which promises a “secure” e-mail system. NPR reported that problems that could arise for political dissidents or activists if governments gain access to the e-mail system.

Now, Slate takes a look at the issue of Internet security in general, explaining that Web users have a lot to worry about:

To understand how this happened, you need to understand the way much of the Web’s private traffic stays private. Whenever you’re sending sensitive information online—say, your credit card number to Amazon or a message over Gmail—the content is encrypted before being sent and then decrypted by the Web site you sent it to. (Sites using this secure mode have URLs that start with “https,” and browsers add a padlock icon as well to demonstrate you’re communicating securely.) Every vendor has its own rules for how to scramble information so that only it, the intended recipient, can decode it. If anyone intercepts the message along the way, it will appear to be a meaningless digital jumble. [...] Read more »