Compliantly

Three out of four Americans believe that individuals are responsible for protecting their own privacy online. That's the bottom line of a new survey conducted by TRUSTe, a company that certifies the compliance of websites with privacy standards and statements.

Nonetheless, The New York Times reports that the Federal Trade Commission is trying to put more responsibility on website operators:

Last month, the F.T.C. revised its suggestions for behavioral advertising rules for the industry, proposing, among other measures, that sites disclose when they are participating in behavioral advertising and obtain consumers’ permission to do so.

One F.T.C. commissioner, Jon Leibowitz, warned that if the industry did not respond, intervention would be next.

“Put simply, this could be the last clear chance to show that self-regulation can — and will -- effectively protect consumers’ privacy,” [FTC commissioner Jon] Leibowitz said, or else “it will certainly invite legislation by Congress and a more regulatory approach by our commission.”

Behavioral advertising, which records individual users' Web usage by inserting cookies into their browsers and keeping a log of where they go and what they do, is the most high-profile privacy issue today. Google-owned DoubleClick is tracks Web users across many sites, combining them into one profile at DoubleClick's end to be used for ad targeting. Some survey respondents use cookie-deleting browsers and anonymizing software to thwart tracking systems.

Privacy advocates, TRUSTe, and the FTC all strongly enourage companies to post meticulous privacy statements for online vistors, and to follow them to the letter. Still, only 15 percent of TRUSTe's survey respondents said they actually read privacy statements.

Tech bellweathers Cisco and Google are being touted as top candidates to join the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Citigroup and General Motors, which are trading below $2, are in danger of being kicked off the Dow. The DJIA represents 30 of the most widely held U.S. stocks.

GigaOm blogger Kevin Kelleher notes that Google is a good possibility as it’s held relatively steady in the past six months, dropping 30.5% compared to a 44.7% drop in the S&P 500. 

Vivek Kundra, the popular and accomplished IT manager appointed by President Barack Obama to the office of Federal CIO, may have a minor theft charge from 1997.

On Tuesday morning, Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag used public records to match Kundra's former address in Gaithersburg, Maryland, to the address listed in a public case record for a Vivek Kundra who pleaded guilty in 1997 to an unspecified theft of less than $300. Valleywag has a screenshot of the case record.

The Vivek Kundra listed in the case pleaded guilty and received what's called a probation before judgement. As explained by the Maryland Lawyer Blog, a PBJ is generally not considered a conviction.

Kundra is already wrangling with the fallout from another, much larger criminal case brought against a former employee. Last Thursday, FBI agents raided Kundra's former office at the District of Columbia's IT department. Kundra wasn't a target of the raid. A former subordinate of his, Yusuf Acar, has been charged with bribery.

The FBI has made clear that Kundra is not implicated in the bribery case, but Kundra has taken leave from his federal gig to keep President Obama's administration from being dragged into the mud.

If the theft charge turns out to be his, it may force the resignation of a man who once made Infoworld's Top 25 CTO's list, a manager widely regarded as being uniquely qualified to tackle the supersize office politics of America's federal IT departments.

If it's not him, we'll all look stupid.

Note: The Industry Standard has asked the White House press office for comment, and will update the story if and when it responds. 

Corporate market has also appreciated the IP communications' potential for increasing business efficiency. The IP based technologies have replaced the traditional telephony stations in most Call Centers and in territorially spread businesses, enabling staff mobility and making everyone reachable. New applications providing collaboration services, audio and videoconferencing, tools for fixed and mobile communications' transparent merge, are being introduced ubiquitously.

The corporate IP communications market today features host of solutions - ranging from biggest manufacturers to newcomers. Development of efficient innovative services by means of IP technologies becomes more and more important for carriers, state bodies, and corporations. New notions and abbreviations - such as SIP, FMC, IMS, and IPTV- are heard frequently, something hard to imagine just few years ago. Traditional carriers, mobile, cable TV network operators, alternative operators, Internet service providers, and various ASP (Application Service Providers) - today all play in one field.

The All over IP Business Forum organizers invite you to take part in discussion of info-communications market's current state, ways of its development and prospect for creating broad professional community.

Nokia is seriously contemplating entering the notebook market, according to research firm DisplaySearch. A blog entry by analyst John Jacobs quotes Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo as saying in an interview with Finnish national broadcaster YLE that the company is "looking very actively" at the possibility.

However, it sounded as if Nokia's entry would not necessarily resemble what we think of today as a notebook or even mini-notebook. "We don’t have to look even for five years from now to see that what we know as a cell phone and what we know as a PC are in many ways converging," Kallasvuo reportedly said. "Today we have hundreds of millions of people who are having their first Internet experience on the phone. This is a good indication."

In the blog, Jacobs writes that he agrees with Kallasvuo that the two devices are converging. However, he says it would not be easy for a mobile phone company to break into the notebook market. There are several reasons for this, he says -- namely, established competition in PC industry, and the wide disparity in components. Mobile phones generally do not have heat sinks, fans, hard drives or optical drives, which means that even a well-known company like Nokia might have to spend a lot of time and effort negotiating new supplier relationships.

Jacobs says he believes Nokia is losing share in the smartphone segment, where the iPhone has made a strong showing. In recent quarters, Nokia has issued several lower sales forecasts. 

A Nokia spokesperson verified that Kallasvuo did say notebooks were an active area of interest, but downplayed specific plans.

AT&T announced today that it will open its wireless network to smart meter maker SmartSynch, allowing electric utilities to install its IP-based smart grid technology in even more residential areas. Every SmartSynch SmartMeter will now send energy use information to utilities and homeowners over the expansive AT&T network, saving millions of dollars in network infrastructure, expansion and maintenance costs.

Now any consumer with AT&T service will be able to understand their energy consumption in economic terms, encouraging them to cut down on unnecessary use, especially during peak periods. There are several companies and tools that provide the same information — Tendril, Greenbox and soon Google PowerMeter, among them — but AT&T claims its new system will increase the speed and efficiency of communication between meters, homeowners and utilities.

“This is the first announcement of a major network provider really getting into the smart grid business, and AT&T is the largest wireless provider in the country,” says SmartSynch chief executive Stephen Johnston. “Hopefully this will encourage other businesses in the IP-based communication space like Motorola, Qualcomm and others to get involved.” He cited mobile phone applications that allow users to remotely monitor and adjust home energy consumption as a key area for expansion.

The wireless giant says it chose to work with SmartSynch because it’s the only company that offers end-to-end smart grid intelligence on any device (cell phones, computers, etc.). Plus, it already works with the decade-old smart grid company to connect meters in commercial and industrial settings with more than 100 different utilities. This new move is essentially a big bet that the residential smart meter business will take off in the next several years — but it’s also a fairly safe one, considering the billions of dollars the recent economic stimulus plan has earmarked for smart grid expansion. President Obama himself has urged the installation of at least 40 million smart meters in homes across the country.

AT&T has had its hat in the smart grid ring for a while but has more plans in store. On top of these efforts, it says it has also cemented useful relationships with U.S. utilities by providing them with mobile applications that track fieldworkers, detect power outages and remotely monitor electrical systems. These connections could come in handy as it deepens its involvement in the smart grid’s rapid evolution.

SmartSynch raised $25 million last year in fourth-round funding. Its investors include Credit Suisse, Batelle Ventures, Beacon Group, Endeavor Capital Management, GulfSouth Capital, Battelle’s affiliate Innovation Valley Partners, Kinetic Ventures, OPG Ventures and Siemens Venture Capital.

Facebook is giving its users greater control over just how private they want their profile, updates, photos and videos to be. Want to keep your latest endeavor between you and your network of Facebook friends? Done. Want to open your pages up to public viewing? Well, now you can do that too.

"One of the top priorities at Facebook is offering privacy controls that let you choose exactly what you share with whom," said Mark Slee, an engineer at Facebook, in a blog post Monday afternoon. "Starting today, you can choose to make your profile and any of your content available to everyone on Facebook. None of your existing privacy settings have changed. This is an additional setting for those of you who wish to share with a broader audience."

Monday's change comes on the heels of several recent changes to the Facebook social network.

For example, Facebook fired a shot across Twitter Inc.'s bow earlier this month with the announcement that its public profiles have been updated to allow users to share personal information with an unlimited number of friends. And the new Facebook setup also will enable businesses, organizations or even celebrities to blast out information to customers, members or fans.

The site recently showed off a controversial redesign that has upset many users. "Please bring back the old Facebook," wrote one user responding to Slee's blog. Yesterday's announcement drew more negative than positive comments from users responding to the blog post.

With this latest change, users now can go to their privacy page and change the setting to "everyone" if they want to open their content up to the public.

"I think this is a good thing," said Dan Olds, principle analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group. "It gives people on Facebook much more granular control over what they show or don't show the public. Giving customers more control over how they use your product is almost universally a good thing. It helps people get more use out of it. There are some people who will make many more connections because of these new features."

This doesn't mean it will be easier for people to Google your content, but it does mean that it will be easier for other Facebook users to find you and the photos of your new house or your dog's birthday party.

By opening up your privacy settings, Slee explained that people who see one of your posts or who find you through a search on Facebook will now be able to see any part of the profile opened by the user for public viewing. "While some special rules remain in place about who can see your profile if you are a minor, people generally won't need to be friends with you or share a common network in order to view your content if you choose the new "Everyone" setting," he wrote.

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