In the News: Many Instagram Users Report Unauthorized Entry into Account

In the News: Many Instagram Users Report Unauthorized Entry into Account

By Jason Cheung on August 28, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , ,

In August 2018, Instagram users reported that their accounts had been compromised by hackers that changed their account password, disabled two-factor authentication, and edited personal information. Karissa Bell [1] reported that Instagram users were reaching out on other social media platforms [2] to report unauthorized entry into their accounts. Several commonalities were reported among the accounts affected: a change to an email in a .ru domain (the domain code assigned to Russia [3][4] ), changes of account’s profile pictures into Disney or Pixar characters, and the removal of the account’s ‘Bio’ information.

Have you been affected by this recent account security incident at Instagram? Do you feel that your online accounts are kept secure? Let us know in the comments of this article!

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research to make informed decisions.

 

Image Attribution

Computer Cyber Hacker Hacking by Pixabay

 

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

Instagram users’ accounts reportedly being hijacked in spreading hack – Cnet

https://www.cnet.com/news/instagram-users-accounts-reportedly-being-hijacked-in-spreading-hack/

Instagram hacked? Warning as Russian cyberattackers steal hundreds of accounts  – Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/08/14/instagram-hacked-warning-as-russian-cyberattackers-steal-hundreds-accounts.html

Instagram hacked? Warning as Russian cyberattackers steal hundreds of accounts – and no one knows how or why  – The Sun – link needed!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7010158/instagram-hacked-cant-log-in-email-verification-text-2fa/

Instagram hack sees accounts replaced with film stills – BBC – link needed!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-45184153

 

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In the News: Facial Recognition Software at Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics

By elyse hill on August 22, 2018 | Tagged with , , ,

Image used under CC BY 2.0 from Flickr user ajpscs

The organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games announced their plans to use facial recognition software as a security measure to verify the identities of athletes, officials, and media representatives at entry checkpoints. The intention behind the added technology is for increased security, comfort, and convenience, as stated in recent press release [1]. As the Games will occur during Tokyo’s hottest months, the new feature has been added to decrease wait times for athletes during security checks, and to prevent forged or stolen accreditation from being used [2].

The software to be employed throughout the Games, called NeoFace, has been developed by NEC Corp., which currently uses their biometric identification technology in airports and other large-scale facilities in more than 70 countries, Japan included [3]. Facial images of authorized individuals will be collected prior to the events and stored in a database. These images will then be compared against facial scans at checkpoints in order to verify identity. While the technology will be used at over 40 venues during the games, such as the Olympic village, media tents, and arenas, officials have reassured that its use is reserved for accredited personnel only. Ticket holders, therefore, will not be subjected to the software. [4]

What do you think of facial recognition technology being used at a global event such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games? Should athletes and personnel have the choice to opt out of this security measure? Be sure to leave a comment in the discussion box with your thoughts!

For further reading, check out these articles below:

Olympics to deploy facial recognition technology to screen staff, athletes and reporters

NEC unveils facial recognition system for 2020 Tokyo Olympics

Olympic Planners Want to Scan the Faces of Hundreds of Thousands at 2020 Tokyo Games

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The Relationship Between You and Institutional Software

By Jason Cheung on August 21, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Introduction

Recently, the University of Toronto decided to switch its Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard Learn [1] by Blackboard Inc., to Canvas [2] by Instructure. The newly installed LMS is named Quercus, a branded instance of Canvas built for the University of Toronto. This change in software sparked questions for the Digital Tattoo team to find out:

  • What happens when public institutions, such as universities, decide to partner with private corporations to provide vendor solutions for its operation?
  • What factors are considered or prioritized in this decision?
  • What are the relationship and agreements between these vendors and the student end-users of their product?

To address these questions, Digital Tattoo team members Jason and Dominique sat down with Avi Hyman, the current Director of Academic & Collaborative Technologies (ACT), to receive references to many resources for research and to find out the relationship between students and the enterprise software they use at school.

What Determines How Software is Used at School?

When undergraduate and graduate students apply for a program at the University of Toronto for the first time, they agree to a Privacy Policy [3][4] that states the following:

“The University of Toronto respects your privacy. Personal information that you provide to the University is collected pursuant to section 2(14) of the University of Toronto Act, 1971. It is collected for the purpose of administering admissions, registration, academic programs, university-related student activities, activities of student societies, safety, financial assistance and awards, graduation and university advancement, and reporting to government agencies for statistical purposes. At all times it will be protected in accordance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.”

For undergraduates, this is stated on an information page for perspective students [5] , under the ‘University of Toronto Notice of Collection’ section. In addition, undergraduate students applying to any university in Ontario must also agree to a separate privacy policy with the Ontario Universities Application Centre (OUAC) that govern how OUAC handles and transmits the details of university applications to the respective institutions [6] .

For graduate students, they apply directly to the university through an online application form. The application form for the program that Dominique and Jason are enrolled in, the Master of Information [7] , states that:

“Applicants are admitted under the General Regulations of the School of Graduate Studies.” [8]

Within the General Regulations, it is stipulated that graduate students must also adhere to the Policies and Guidelines listed on the School of Graduate Studies’ website [9] , and in section 11.11 and 11.13, stipulates the Policy on Official Correspondence with Students and the Appropriate Use of Information and Communication Technology [10] . Therefore, the behaviour of students when using institutional software is bound by the policies and agreement between themselves and the university, and not between themselves and the vendor that produced the software.

The guideline for Appropriate Use of Information and Communication Technology states that students, both undergraduate and graduate, must follow the Student Code of Conduct [11] and prohibits activities such as threatening other students, plagiarism, cyberbullying, and using school software for malicious activities like hacking or tricking other people.

How does the School Procure Software for Students to Use?

The University of Toronto has a Procurement Policy that lays out the process of bidding, evaluation, and selection of potential vendors [12] . For Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions, Information Technology Services has additional requirements for vendors to fulfill, including the Information Risk Management Questionnaire (IRMQ) [13] and Information Safety Guidelines [14] . The IRMQ evaluates the purpose, storage, retention, threat, and risk levels of information collection of proposed vendor solutions for the ICT to review.

Lastly, the initiative to procure a new vendor solution for the university’s LMS , the Academic Toolbox Renewal Initiative, published their own list of common criteria they established for the potential solutions [15] , with the first criteria listed as “Information Risk, Security, Privacy”. If vendors are able to fulfill all of these requirements of the procurement process, they have the possibility of becoming shortlisted or selected as the winning proposal for procurement.

This type of software license agreement is known as volume or enterprise licensing, where a collective agreement governs the end user license agreement for all members of an organization, instead of a collection of individual licenses for each user [16] . This type of licensing is not unique to educational institutions like universities. In fact, volume or enterprise licenses are commonly used in corporate settings, in which a large number of users require access to a software tool for business operations. In both cases, the organization itself is the signatory to the license, not the end users of the software. Likewise, if a new employee were to use software at the office, they would not be presented with the opportunity to click ‘I Accept’ on a terms of service pop-up before using the software.

A distinction between user content and user data must be made to clarify how the University of Toronto keeps the information of students safe when partnering with third party vendors. User content consists of the documents, media (photos and videos), and text that you submit and receive from an application. In the case of Quercus, it would include information such as the .pdf file uploaded as an assignment submission, the image attached to a message to a classmate, or the text in the announcements from teachers. Conversely, user data consists of the information generated by a server in order to process interactions between the end-user and the system the person is trying to use. Examples of this data include log-on times, the IP address of the end-user, and the page requests and responses between the user’s machine and the server.

Within the procurement process, the University of Toronto uses the Information Risk Management Questionnarie (IRMQ) to assess factors such as non-essential information and user content collection, system-generated information collection, license agreement transferability, ownership of created data by the university, collection of personally identifiable information, information retention and disposal, software security, and system requirements of potential vendor solutions. This checklist is used in conjunction with the University’s Procurement Policy and Policy on Information Security and the Protection of Digital Assets [17] . In the Policy of Information Security and the Protection of Digital Assets, it states:

“It is the obligation of all University community members to protect information that is created by them and stored by the University and its authorized delegates to its defined principles and standards.”

Furthermore, during the procurement process, the University also audits potential license agreements for FIPPA (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) compliance [18]. According to the University’s statement on FIPPA [19] , students are free to request access to these types of records from their university:

  1. those containing your own personal information;
  2. most university administrative records;
  3. records about the subject matter or amount of funding of University research;
  4. records of University staff employment expenses.

In cases where a student disagrees with the University’s choice of vendor partner for a solution that is for a purpose under the Privacy Policy, the student can contact their student council, their faculty, or the Office of the Provost [20] to raise their specific concerns about any vendor software that is used during their time at the school.

What Does This Mean for You?

Now that you have a better understanding of the agreements between students, the school, and third party vendors, we’re interested in your thoughts about the following. Tell us your answers, and read the responses of other students to these questions in the comment section of this article!

  1. What do you think about your relationship with the software provided by your academic institution?
  2. What software do you use most often to complete your coursework or register for courses?
  3. Were you aware of the agreements that govern how students use software at your school?
  4. Are you aware of what kinds of information are being accessed by third party vendors to provide their services to you?
  5. How do you feel when new software is introduced to students?
  6. What impacts do the decisions in software now mean for students applying to the school in the future?

Appendix

ACT  [21] is a partnership between the Center for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI) [22] and the Information & Technology Services (ITS) [23] , and they provide strategic leadership in the development and implementation of information technology services that support the academic mission of the University of Toronto.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research for informed decisions.

 

Image Credits

finger pointing by BomSymbols from the Noun Project

school by David from the Noun Project

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

Links within the University of Toronto

http://act.utoronto.ca/  – ACT website

http://teaching.utoronto.ca/ – CTSI website

http://its.utoronto.ca/ – ITS

https://www.procurement.utoronto.ca/about-procurement/uoft-procurement-policy – Procurement Policy

http://www.governingcouncil.lamp4.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/p0302-pisatpoda-2015-2016pol.pdf  – Policy on Information Security and the Protection of Digital Assets

http://www.governingcouncil.utoronto.ca/Assets/Governing+Council+Digital+Assets/Policies/PDF/ppjul012002.pdf  – Student Code of Conduct

http://toolboxrenewal.utoronto.ca/common-criteria/ – standards / principles of vendors

http://www.its.utoronto.ca/services/67 – information security guidelines / Information Risk Management Questionnaire (IRMQ) (UofT)

https://www.procurement.utoronto.ca/about-procurement/uoft-procurement-policy – prospective suppliers plus checklist

http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/ – Office of the Provost

http://www.provost.utoronto.ca/policy/use.htm – appropriate use of information and communication technology

http://www.fippa.utoronto.ca/ – U of T FIPPA page

https://sgs.calendar.utoronto.ca/general-regulations – School of Graduate Studies General Regulations

 

Other Links

https://www.canvaslms.com/security – Canvas encryption page

https://ts.tulane.edu/content/software-license-types  – Types of Software Licensing

https://www.utfa.org/content/letter-provost-about-email-migration – UTFA’s Letter to the Provost about Email Migration (Office365)

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Canvas Exposed: The little problem with UBC’s big, expensive new tool

By bryan short on August 20, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A pen rests just above an unfilled check box that says "I agree".

The little problem with UBC’s big, expensive new tool

Last year, UBC introduced a new learning management system. Canvas by Instructure was rolled out to replace the aging and underperforming Blackboard Connect. When classes begin this September, UBC’s more than 60,000 students will only be using the new Canvas system.

Learning management systems are useful because they allow students to submit assignments from home, interact with their peers and professors remotely, and grant access to additional learning materials. But with these benefits there are also some concerns. The digital exhaust that students create while navigating these systems is collected, stored, and analyzed.

As previously discussed, this process may unjustly colour the perception of students in the eyes of instructors and administrators, creating the potential for unfair grading practices based on arbitrary behavioural data.

But not only that, there’s now a very real concern about who has access to all of the data that these systems collect about students, including sensitive personal information. Previously, with Blackboard Connect, the data was stored on UBC servers. Now, with Canvas, that data is being stored on cloud computing servers owned and operated by Amazon in Quebec.

Access to the personal information of UBC students is granted to international companies that operate and maintain the Canvas system. Although access is restricted to specific uses outlined in the service contract, personal information flowing outside of Canada is something that B.C.’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act protects against.

According to section 30.1 of the act, the storage and access of personal information can only happen outside of Canada if the individual who the information is about has provided consent. Meaning, that Canvas requires every UBC student to provide informed consent to their personal information flowing across international borders.

For this to happen, each UBC student must knowingly agree to the Canvas contract with a full understanding of exactly what personal information is being accessed and stored outside of Canada. It would be reasonable to assume that this includes:

  • the names of the companies who have access to UBC student personal information
  • the location(s) of access
  • the duration the data is being stored
  • the specific types of personal information being accessed
  • how the data is being used
  • and why the use of personal information is necessary in the operation and maintenance of the system

In theory, there would be no issue if every UBC student precisely understood all of those things and if all of that information was available. Yet, it’s unlikely that all students (if any) understand what exactly they’re consenting to in the Canvas contract (this is unrelated to questions of if they would care if they did understand) and, as it stands, that information is not available for students.

So it would appear, then, that students are not being presented with opportunity to provide informed consent to the cross border flow of their personal information unless they were to know this information. Or, at the very least, if UBC would provide students with access to this information.

But, as you’ll soon discover, UBC representatives aren’t able to tell students what international companies have access to their personal information or any of these other, necessary things.

Informed consent vs forced consent: When saying ‘No’ isn’t an option

For many, these types of potential privacy violations are not a palpable concern. It’s understandable that students wouldn’t have the time to worry about the terms of use and privacy policies for internal systems that are required for their post-secondary studies. They agree to these policies because the use of Canvas is a necessary step in completing their education.

They don’t really have a choice in the matter.

After the arduous process of applying to a university, perhaps moving a significant distance, isolating oneself from an established support network, investing heavily in education, and facing the new challenge of university studies, contracts like Canvas’ privacy policy and terms of use are often and understandably overlooked in comparison to other situational matters.

It has become a very regrettable common practice for consumers to feel pressured to consent with contracts like Canvas’ without properly understanding their implications and without, ultimately, really having a choice in the matter. Canvas’ contract is designed like the take-it-or-leave-it contracts that the European Union General Data Protection Regulations have made illegal.

But here in Canada, if a student were to observe a problem with a contract like Canvas’, what reasonable options would they have to disagree, to not consent to their personal information flowing across international borders, for example?

Could that student still achieve success at a university like UBC without consenting to the use of a system like Canvas? Could they complete their studies without using the system? Would it be reasonable to expect that student to enroll at another institution that uses a different system?

Last year, during the final year of my graduate studies, I decided not to consent to the terms of use and privacy policy for Canvas. I chose not to accept the terms of use and privacy policy for UBC’s new learning management system because I felt that the contract may be in violation of our provincial privacy laws.

Over the year, I’ve been proactively working towards a solution where I’d be able to consent to the Canvas contract. But, as previously stated, I couldn’t do this without knowing the answers to the questions that were posed earlier: Where does this information travel, who has access to it, how long is it stored, and what is it, exactly?

Because that’s how meaningful, informed consent is generated between two parties entering into contract together and that’s how we avoid systemic privacy violations like the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

But I was unable to get access to the information that I needed to make that informed decision. I was not provided with a reasonable alternative to using the Canvas system. And it very quickly became apparent that there are no alternatives for privacy conscious UBC students.

And for these reasons, I suggest that, for an incoming student beginning at UBC this year, it would be impossible not to consent to the use of Canvas.

No choice means no contract 

For the past year, I’ve been investigating what exactly happens when a student doesn’t consent to the Canvas contract. I’ve had meetings with student government, UBC administrators, and the ombudsperson for students; I’ve had phone calls with lawyers from both inside and outside of UBC; and I’ve filed freedom of information requests for records that explicitly show where the personal information of UBC students is accessed and stored, and for the contracts that UBC holds with these companies.

At this time, despite the legally mandated timeframe for producing these documents having expired, UBC representatives have failed to share with me what companies have access to my personal information, where they are located, what personal information they have access to, how long they keep it for, and how they use it. So in response to my previous question: Even if an incoming student wished to follow the law in providing informed consent to the Canvas contract, which requires these things be known, they wouldn’t be able to find them out, as I’ve spent a year attempting to do.

After consulting the law, speaking with experts, filing requests, it seems that I’m still not able to provide informed consent to the Canvas contract because I still don’t know what personal information is flowing where.

It is literally impossible for a UBC student to provide meaningful and informed consent to the terms of use and privacy policy for Canvas. For this reason, contract that exists today between students and UBC can only be described as forced consent.

Under the General Data Protection Regulations in the European Union, and the 126 other countries around the word who have adopted similar legislation that’s modeled after the E.U.’s, there would be a straightforward legal process to oppose a contract such as Canvas’. (In Canada, it’s only be a matter of time before our laws begin to resemble the E.U.’s GDPR: The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics tabled a PIPEDA reform in February of this year, and M.P. Brian Masse also tabled motion 175 in the House of Commons in April of this year.)

Throughout the past year, I’ve grown more concerned about the way that the personal information of UBC students is being treated. My concerns have only increased as I’ve uncovered documents that show that these companies appear to be unable to operate within our provincial privacy laws.

What students can do

My time as a student at UBC has come to a close. But for students continuing their studies, or beginning them next month, the fight for your digital rights isn’t over. If you would like answers to the questions that I’ve been asking, like who has access to your sensitive personal information, in what countries, and why they need it, I’d suggest the following things:

  1. Contact your student government representatives at the Alma Mater Society (AMS). I’ve met with a couple members of the student government to voice my concerns and was met with varying degrees of interest and ability. Student government won’t view this as an issue unless more students tell them it’s an issue.
  2. Voice your concerns to the UBC Ombudsperson for students. I’ve had several meeting with the Ombudsperson and she has expressed a willingness to understand the issue and search for viable solutions.
  3. Request access to your data. Under our provincial privacy laws, you’re entitled to receive access to the data that UBC collects about you. These requests can be submitted through the Office of Counsel. If UBC denies your access to this data, like they did with me, you can file a complaint with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia.
  4. Open up a dialogue with your instructors. UBC faculty might be surprised to learn about the data concerns related to Canvas and be sympathetic. After all, their information is also at risk.
  5. Contact the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. If you’re concerned about your personal information and don’t feel like you have a choice about using Canvas, you might want to get some legal help. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association may see merit in defending more than 60,000 students against a potential systemic privacy violation.
  6. Don’t use Canvas. If you’ve already agreed to the terms of use and privacy policy, you can contact the UBC Access and Privacy Manager (access.and.privacy@ubc.ca or 604-822-2451) and inform them that you’re withdrawing your consent. If you haven’t “given” your consent yet, then don’t. You can cite the concerns described in this blog when discussing why you’re not able to consent.

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In the News: Censored Version of Google ‘Project Dragonfly’ Coming to China

By Jason Cheung on August 14, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , ,

Google, the company with the motto, “Don’t Be Evil”, is planning to re-enter the Chinese web with a censored search engine code-named “Dragonfly”. The Intercept [1] revealed that exposed, confidential documents state that:

“Google’s Chinese search app will automatically identify and filter websites blocked by the Great Firewall. When a person carries out a search, banned websites will be removed from the first page of results, and a disclaimer will be displayed stating that ‘some results may have been removed due to statutory requirements.’”

This censorship will not only affect direct search queries, but also affect recommendations and similar results, so that censored topics and results will not be shown to the Chinese public. Google had previously attempted to enter the Chinese market, but withdrew in 2010 after public backlash for complying with the censorship laws of the Chinese government.

Currently, several topics are prohibited from social media and websites on Chinese domains. These topics include the events of 1989 in Tiananmen Square [2] , George Orwell [3] , Winnie the Pooh [4] , and Peppa Pig [5], amongst others.

 

Questions to think about:

What do you think about this decision by Google to build a search internet for a foreign government?

Do you think corporations should be allowed to participate in political censorship?

How do you think the public in North America will react to this decision?

Let us know in the comments of this article!

 

Read the original article by The Intercept here: https://theintercept.com/2018/08/01/google-china-search-engine-censorship/

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research to make informed decisions.

 

Image Attribution

Caricature of Apollo B. “Iskra” by P. Kurenkov (1863)

Work in Public Domain

 

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

 

Google Developing Censored Search Engine For China – Gizmodo

https://gizmodo.com/google-developing-censored-search-engine-for-china-rep-1828019588

 

China’s censored Google is an ethical catastrophe – TheNextWeb

https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2018/08/06/chinas-censored-google-is-an-ethical-catastrophe/

 

REPOSITORY OF CENSORED AND SENSITIVE CHINESE KEYWORDS – TheCitizenLab

https://citizenlab.ca/2014/12/repository-censored-sensitive-chinese-keywords-13-lists-9054-terms/

 

68 Things You Cannot Say on China’s Internet – New York Times (Soft Paywall)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/24/world/asia/china-internet-censorship.html

 

Internet Censorship in China – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China

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In the News: HTTP Only Sites to be Marked as Not Secure by Google Chrome

By Jason Cheung on August 7, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , ,

Following Google’s announcement in Feburary [1], Google Chrome has implemented a decision to mark all non-HTTPS websites as ‘Not Secure’. In its update to Version 68.0 on July 2018, the address bar will show an indication of the security level of every website a user visits:

This change helps to alert users to websites that do not encrypt data inputted by the user, including the domain name of the site visited, passwords, and search queries typed on an unsecure site (Sites using plain HTTP may not be secure). Furthermore, HTTPS encryption also serves to protect websites from intermediary attacks such as malware injections from pop-up advertisements by validating the identity of the data sent between the user and the website using a public key. Find out more about how HTTPS protects the integrity of a website and its users, read Katie’s article on encryption [2] on the Digital Tattoo website!

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research to make informed decisions.

 

Image Credit

Cloud Security – Secure Data – Cyber Security by Blue Coat Photos (www.bluecoat.com/)

 

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

Google Chrome Now Labels HTTP Sites as ‘Not Secure’ – Wired (Soft Paywall)

https://www.wired.com/story/google-chrome-https-not-secure-label/

Chrome now marks all unencrypted websites as ‘not secure’ – The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17603126/google-chrome-unencrypted-not-secure

HTTP and your online security – Mozilla Blog

https://blog.mozilla.org/internetcitizen/2017/04/21/https-protect/

Secure your site with HTTPS – Google Support

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6073543?hl=en

 

 

 

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In the News: Facebook and Instagram to Launch Screen Time Tracking Feature

By Jason Cheung on August 7, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , ,

Facebook and Instagram have announced plans to launch a feature that will allow its users to view how long they use each application. This feature is set to be launched on only the smartphone versions of the Facebook and Instagram apps, and not on the desktop versions.

Within this feature, users will be able to set a notification that appears when they use the application for a pre-selected amount of time. However, the application will not prevent users from continuing to browse even after this reminder notification has been sent.

 

Do you think that these measures to display screen time are effective?

Will you consider using these features once they are launched? Why or why not?

Why do you think Facebook and Instagram decided to launch such a feature?

If you are a user of either of these applications, check the smartphone version in the coming weeks to view this upcoming feature.

 

View TechCrunch’s article for the screenshots of what these features might look like [1].

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research to make informed decisions.

 

Image Attribution

Clock photo by Skitterphoto, in public domain

https://www.pexels.com/photo/time-watch-clock-hours-9352/

 

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

Facebook and Instagram are making it easier to spend less time on Facebook and Instagram. But why? – Recode

https://www.recode.net/2018/8/1/17637428/facebook-instagram-time-well-spent-screen-time

Want to Curb Phone Use? Facebook and Instagram Have an Idea – Wired (Soft Paywall)

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-instagram-app-time-controls/

Microsoft executive considers it a ‘responsibility’ to help you unplug – Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/02/microsofts-head-devices-considers-it-responsibility-help-you-unplug/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aa12b1a00429

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In the News: Facebook Pushes for Facial Recognition Software

By elyse hill on July 25, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , ,

Image used under CC BY 2.0 from Flickr user Ars Electronica

Despite facing legal trouble in the US for violating state privacy laws by misusing biometric data [1], or the ongoing investigation into the data mining practices of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook recently announced plans to implement facial recognition software in Canada and the European Union. This software was originally introduced within the United States in December of 2017. However, this will be the second time this technology has been pushed by the social media company within the EU, after it was briefly introduced and deactivated in 2012 when concerns were raised about consent policies [2].

This time around, Facebook has a renewed motivation behind pushing the technology:

  • to protect users from strangers using their photos to impersonate them;
  • to alert users of photos they appear in without being tagged; and
  • to tell visually impaired users who is in a photo or video [3].

To do this, Facebook’s learning systems analyze the pixels of an uploaded and tagged image and create a unique template that is assigned to a known user. These templates are then compared against newly added pictures in order to find a match. Once a match is found, users are notified that they have appeared in an image, even if they haven’t been tagged. However, there’s only one snag: unless a photo is used as a profile picture, users must be in the sharer’s target audience. Therefore, if you are not a Facebook friend of the user sharing the image, or they have applied increased privacy settings to who is able to view their photos, users may not see all images they appear in. Users are also able to opt out of this service at any time, wherein Facebook has reassured the public that they will delete the templates they have created [4].

While a timeline has not been set for when Canadians can expect to see the technology, many have already expressed concern for how it will be used. Is Facebook promoting this service as a way to increase privacy, when it may just be another way to collect user data? Can users trust that information collected from photos will be deleted if they choose to opt out of this service? Will this service always maintain an opt out option, or will it soon be a requirement of the social media platform? As Facebook’s reputation has been recently tarnished by their unethical data collection policies and practices regarding consent, critical questions like these are not only valid, but important to ask.

What are your thoughts? Does facial recognition software on social media concern you, or give you a greater sense of privacy and protection? Be sure to leave a comment in the discussion box below!

 

For further reading on Facebook’s use of the emerging technology, check out these articles:

Facebook’s Push for Facial Recognition Prompts Privacy Alarms

Facebook announces facial recognition for Canadian users – but here’s what to consider first

Hard Questions: Should I Be Afraid of Face Recognition Technology?

 

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Ownership of Content in Your Digital Life – World Wide Web (Part 2)

By Jason Cheung on July 16, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , ,

What Do You Own on Your Website?

In our previous article, we took a look at the content ownership agreements that exist between social media users and the companies behind Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In short, we learned that as part of the agreement to use their services, users agree to give these companies a transferable license to use any content uploaded to each social media platform. As well, the actions and behaviours of users were used to generate targeted profiling data to sell to marketing agencies.

People who may wish to share their experiences, stories, and ideas on the internet, but are hesitant to navigate the terms of service of each respective social media platform may choose to publish content on self-hosted  websites (as was the case with personal blogs in the days before social media).

However, escaping the terms of service of social media sites still does not grant absolute rights of ownership to a website, as one still relies on the services of other companies to successfully publish and distribute their site over the internet. So what do you own and have copyright protection on when you decide to create your own website? Are your articles, photos, and website design safe from theft or unwanted appropriation? Let’s find out what elements of a website are owned by its creator.

A typical website can be categorized in three parts: the front end (browser), hosting, and database (back-end). Within these three parts, elements created by you, (such as content, stylesheets, and custom database structures), are mixed with infrastructural elements integral to a website’s structure, such as database software, CMS system, web server storage, and the DNS registration for a custom domain name. These elements are typically not owned by a website’s creator. Does the necessity of including these infrastructural elements affect the copyright of elements created by the site’s owner?

Domain Name – You Lease This

You paid a domain name registrar a sum to register a domain name, and set the nameserver to your webhost. Great job! Your site is now visible to the world! But do you own your domain name? The answer, surprisingly, is no! When you ‘buy’ a domain name, you purchase a license for the exclusive use of that domain name for a set period of time. In truth, no one person has the ultimate ‘ownership’ of your domain, as each domain name registrar pays ICANN to set up the relationship between you and your domain name. As your domain name expires, another person can register with another registrar to re-use the same domain name, and ICANN would re-assign the relationship to the new licensee.

Web Server Storage – You Lease This, Unless You Buy It

Your website has .html and .css files, photos, and videos you want to share. Great! But how do other people get to access it? First, you need to put your files on a publicly accessible web server, or a computer with an internet connection. You might be saying: “Hey, the computer I’m using has an internet connection,” and you’re right! Some people also have their own web server storage in the form of a dedicated computer or using their personal computer as a web server, but this option costs significant time and money to operate. More commonly, web site creators opt to lease web storage from a company to host their files – does this sound familiar? Again, we are faced with terms and conditions when we enter a relationship with a company to hold our data on their servers. To give an example, I host my personal website on Bluehost, so let’s take a look at what their terms say about my content. From section 6 in Bluehost’s User Agreement section of their terms:

“You hereby grant to Bluehost, to the extent necessary to provide the Services, a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide right and license to: (i) use, reproduce, publicly perform, publicly display, modify, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part), publish and distribute Subscriber Content and the Subscriber Website; and (ii) make archival or back-up copies of the Subscriber Content and the Subscriber Website. Except for the rights expressly granted above, Bluehost is not acquiring any right, title or interest in or to the Subscriber Content, all of which shall remain solely with you.”

It looks as though we have seen this before, right? The subtle difference between Bluehost’s terms of service and the terms we encountered on the social media platforms is that Bluehost does not include a clause about ‘transferability’, ‘royalty-free’, or ‘sub-licensable’ in their terms and conditions, which do not give it the right to transfer the license it has to other parties. If you are planning to lease web server storage, take a close look for those terms mentioned above. Otherwise, the license to use and display your content is generally required for the web server company to display your content when someone tries to access your website.

Hosted Content – You Should Own This

What of the content, the heart and soul, of a website? Surely you own the copyright for the photos and text you publish on your website. And you do! In the United States and Canada, both published (as in the case with a website) and unpublished works enter copyright protection from the moment that the author (you) creates it!

However, there can be a grey area when you hire someone else to create content. Depending on the contract and license for that content, you may have ownership of the content, a limited-use license, or a one-time use license for specific content such as photographs or logos. As a result, look for ‘work for hire’ clauses within these work contracts to ensure that the employer retains the copyright for the work produced.

Visual Design – You Should Own This

Great, now we have a website filled with the content we own on it! But how do we display the content in an aesthetically pleasing way? This is where website visual design and layout comes into play. Most websites are styled with cascading style sheet (CSS) to render elements in an organized way, known as the layout of the website.

But do you own this?

It depends on the level of originality demonstrated in the visual design of the website. A traditional website layout of a logo, top navigation, and single column content area does not meet the threshold of ‘original and distinctive’ work set out in Canadian copyright law.

“But I am worried that my awesome design will be taken or reverse engineered by others!”

And that is a fair point, because blatant cases of copying novel visual designs have occurred in the past. The best course of action to take if you are concerned with your layout is to register your visual design for copyright protection (this costs money). This way, you have evidence that you designed the layout of your website, and if it does not pass the originality test, the judge would not grant your application anyway.

Website Language – You Don’t Own This

You can use a multitude of programming and markup languages to code your website, including HTML, PHP, Java, Python, Ruby on Rails, and Javascript, to name a few. While you do not own the language, the code you write is protected by copyright law, as long as it passes the threshold of original creativity, which includes the use of “skills and judgement” in your work. As a result, you cannot copyright a singular web element such as a tag, but you are able to copyright a specific function you authored yourself.

Content Management System – You Lease This

Another important element of a website that interacts directly with your content is the content management system (or CMS) of a website. For larger websites that publishes content frequently, users may opt to use a CMS to manage and simplify the publication process by pre-defining templates for certain content types. Some popular CMS options include WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and many more, which operate under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

The GPL is a free, copyleft license for software that allows licensees to run, use, and modify the software in any way they wish, so long as:

  • the GPL license is extended to all derivative works
  • source code of all derivative works is also provided to the users of the derivative works
  • the freedom of distribution is also given to users of the derivative software

Copyleft, as defined by the GPL, is a way to ensure the freedom of software. They say: “Instead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we “copyleft” it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom.”

Interestingly, GNU allows for the sale of derivative works, and you see this happening in cases like WordPress plugins, which operate under the GNU license, but are sold for a fee. The spirit of the license is to ensure that software remains modifiable for any use, but does not impose that works must be also shared for free as well.

While this may sounds great, what does this have to do with my content? In the GNU’s license agreement, it states that for derivative works:

“You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.”

Does ‘as a whole’ mean that if I used CMS software that uses the GNU license on my website, my website becomes a ‘derivative work’, and I have to provide anyone who asks (with a license) to use my content? No! The GNU license only covers the software that it applies to, so in the case of WordPress, you do not have to provide licenses to anybody, so long as you do not intend to re-distribute WordPress.

However, WordPress (owned by a company called Automattic), has its own terms of use, which includes a very familiar clause about licensing your content for public display in the first section:

By submitting Content to Automattic for inclusion on your website, you grant Automattic a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing, and promoting your blog.

A point to note is that like Bluehost, and unlike the terms of the social media platforms we covered earlier, WordPress does not include a clause about the transfer of this license to other third parties.

Database Software –You Lease This

Ok, now we dive into the murky, technical bits of the backend of a website. Your website has some content that is managed by templates on a content management system, but how does this CMS store and retrieve stuff from your web server storage? That is where relational database management systems come in, and as you may have guessed, these systems come with their own terms and conditions that users agree with.

Some popular database options include MySQL Community, Oracle, Microsoft SQL, and Apache Derby. These systems are installed onto your web server and typically do not transfer your data to their parent organizations, but instead processes your data within your web server directly.

Taking MySQL as an example, let’s take a look at the relationship between database software companies and your data. Similar to WordPress, MySQL Community Edition is distributed under the GPL, and does not require you to distribute licenses to your website unless you plan on distributing a modified version of MySQL. In truth, even if you did intend on distributing a modified version of MySQL, and you used that modified version on your website, you will still only need to distribute a license for MySQL, the database software portion of the website, but not for any of your content, as that modified version constitutes the “as a whole” portion of the GPL license.

However, for other database systems that require a transfer of data between servers, such as database as a service or other cloud database services, you should read carefully into the license agreements regarding what happens to your data after it is copied to another server for processing.

Database Data – You Own This

Generally speaking, the data that you author and input into your database, such as the content of a WordPress post, or an image, belongs to you even when it is stored in a hard disk owned by your web host, managed in a database system owned by Oracle and processed by a content management system owned by Automattic.

However, one should always be careful about the licensing permissions that are granted when entering into a relationship with any company that interacts with your digital identity or data. As mentioned above, most of the traditional database software do not need a clause about a license for your data as the systems are installed within your web server, and typically do not require a license to ‘publicly perform’ or re-display your data elsewhere. As well, be careful of agreements that allow other parties to transfer the license they have to provide the service they offer to you to other entities.

Conclusion

So in total, a website creator has ownership to some elements in his or her website, namely the content, metadata, and visual design of a website, and other custom authored pieces of code. However, creators do not have to worry about complicating the ownership of the elements they authored with licensing agreements of the elements they lease if they choose to use open or free software licenses. The best way to make sure that your content is safe is to double check the terms and conditions of any infrastructure that requires access and use of your data.

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.
Always do your own research for informed decisions.

 

Image Credits

database icon by arjuazka from the Noun Project

interface by asianson.design from the Noun Project

hosting by Rockicon from the Noun Project

https://thenounproject.com/

 

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/website-terminology/

https://nectafy.com/who-owns-a-website/

http://www.ivanhoffman.com/website.html

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#102

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/page-3.html#h-6

https://en.wordpress.com/tos/

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

http://www.howdesign.com/featured/graphic-design-copyright-laws-inspiration-vs-infringement/

http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2409&context=scholarly_works

https://www.astuteo.com/articles/stolen-website-design

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Ownership of Content in Your Digital Life – Social Media (Part 1)

By Jason Cheung on July 9, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Snap, Click, Post, Like: the normal rhythm of a social media user, who uses popular social media/sharing sites to broadcast stories from their day-to-day lives to the world. Most users are content with their relationship with social sharing platforms, so long as the service is uninterrupted. Social sharing platforms allow users to share their lives, see their friend’s stories, and even make comments too. However, a critical analysis of the relationship between social media and its users may change the way that we think about the content that is passed between ourselves and the platforms we use.

User Data vs User Content

What is considered content? Essentially, it is any authored data that is willingly created by a user for use on a social media platform. Content can be anything, and it’s simple to produce. Everything from text, photos, images, or videos created and shared can be considered content.

It is important to distinguish between user-generated content and user-generated data. Some data is created by the act of a user browsing a website, such as their web traffic data that includes their browser type, public IP address, time logs, and cookies. This type of data, although problematic in its ability to identify a user based on browsing history and IP, is not authored, or ‘owned’ by a user. Privacy-minded users can choose to withhold this information from being shared with their internet service provider through tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs), but at the end of the day, the user does not ‘own’ the copyright to use his or her IP address or browser name, as they are numbers assigned to identify users.

Content is separate from user-generated data as its authorship and ownership can be defined by copyright licensing within a specific platform. Typically a user that creates a piece of content (e.g. takes a photo of themselves), has full authorship and copyrights to that photo. However, users may not be aware of the conditions laid out in the terms of service and end user license agreements that alters the copyright status of content they upload.

Prosumption in the Third Wave of Capitalism

In Alvin Toffler’s 1980 text The Third Wave, he writes about an economic movement and convergence in the means of production and consumption, where the activities that consume also requires production at the same time. He coined the term Prosumer: a person who is “part of a new ‘wikinomic’ model where businesses put consumers to work” (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010, p.17). Toffler argues that the result of a saturation of demand for mass-produced products spurs the demand for mass-produced and highly-customized products for every individual. These highly-customized products require the consumer to produce the customization that he or she desires.  Toffler cites examples such as producing the work of a bank teller at an ATM machine, being a caller on a call-in radio show, and using self-checkout machines as cases where consumption and production are intertwined and inseparable.

Prosumer: a person who is “part of a new ‘wikinomic’ model where businesses put consumers to work” (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010, p.17).

Toffler argues that prosumption is the natural evolution of Marxist capitalism, as capital requires continuous growth to capture additional surplus value. Prosumption not only allows capital to increase corporate profit margins through ‘overcharging’ consumers above the cost of production and ‘underpaying’ employees to extract surplus value from labour, but also makes it so that “prosumers seem to enjoy, even love, what they are doing and are willing to devote long hours to it for no pay” (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010, p.22). In the digital economy, prosumption exists within the social media platforms where users freely and simultaneously create (produce) the content in which they browse (consume).

Capital? My Content?

Although some users may be indifferent to the prosumer mode of production that exists within social media sites, others may choose to reassess their relationship with these platforms, especially after a review of the terms and conditions that outline the ownership of user generated content within these platforms. An understanding of a social media platform’s political economy can help users make better judgement as to which, if any, platforms on which they choose to be a prosumer.

In this article, I will briefly review the content ownership terms and conditions for the three most popular social media platforms in the world: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

 

Facebook

Facebook’s recent privacy scandal with Cambridge Analytica potentially decreased the public‘s opinion and trust towards its platform, and privacy on social media in general. In the wake of the controversy, Facebook released a new data policy on April 2018 that aims to provide a more transparent description of what happens to user data collected by the social networking company.

Who Owns Your Content on Facebook? Answer: You (let Facebook use it)

While this may seem surprising for some readers, users of Facebook actually do own their own content when they share or upload to Facebook’s servers. In Facebook’s new post-GDPR Terms of Service, they mention:

 

“You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content.” (Section 3, Part 3)

 

The license they describe is required for Facebook to provide its services to you as a social networking site. An example of the usage of this license happens when you search the name of a new friend and recognize him or her through their profile picture. Facebook requires this license for that new friend’s profile picture to be displayed to others. In addition, you can revoke your license by deleting your content or account, but only if you have not shared your content with others (e.g. Direct Messages, wall posts). Facebook also states:

 

“You can end this license any time by deleting your content or account. You should know that, for technical reasons, content you delete may persist for a limited period of time in backup copies (though it will not be visible to other users). In addition, content you delete may continue to appear if you have shared it with others and they have not deleted it.” (Section 3, Part 3)

 

However, the clause within the license regarding the transferability of the license may worry some users. Although Facebook does not have ownership of your content, they specify that they are allowed to use your content, and sell the rights to use your content, to others as well. A hint of their intentions is revealed in their inclusion of the rights to “publicly perform or display, and create derivative works of your content” (Section 3, Part 1), suggesting that Facebook aims to use your content in ways outside of providing its service as a social networking website.

 

Twitter

Twitter has also been in hot water for selling its user’s public tweets to Global Science Research for semantic analysis and targeted marketing during the 2016 election in the United States. However, what do Twitter’s  terms and services say about the ownership of a user’s content?

Who Owns Your Content on Twitter? Answer: You let Twitter borrow it

Twitter’s Terms of Service states:

“You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. What’s yours is yours — you own your Content (and your incorporated audio, photos and videos are considered part of the Content).” (Section 3)

 

“By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed). This license authorizes us to make your Content available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to provide, promote, and improve the Services and to make Content submitted to or through the Services available to other companies, organizations or individuals for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, promotion or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.” (Section 3)

Similar to Facebook’s terms of service, Twitter outlines an agreement that grants them a royalty-free and transferable license to use your content, and sell that license to third parties as well. In 2010, a photographer named David Morel took photos of the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Haiti and uploaded some on Twitter. Some news outlets downloaded the images from Twitter and placed them in newspapers. Eventually, Morel was awarded $1.2 million as a court judgement, as these news outlets did not purchase the license for these photos. However, under Twitter’s terms of service, news outlets could have contacted Twitter directly to negotiate a licensing deal for Morel’s photos and would not have to pay Morel for his work, but would pay Twitter a fee to access Twitter’s royalty-free license of his work.

 

Instagram

Instagram made headlines in 2012 after the platform was purchased by Facebook and announced that it planned on using its user’s Instagram posts in their advertisements without asking for consent or compensating their users. Let’s look at its Terms of Service now to see if that is still the case.

Who Owns Your Content on Instagram? Answer: You … let Instagram borrow it

Instagram’s Terms of Service state:

“Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy”

“Some of the Service is supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions, and you hereby agree that Instagram may place such advertising and promotions on the Service or on, about, or in conjunction with your Content. The manner, mode and extent of such advertising and promotions are subject to change without specific notice to you.”

The terms clearly state that Instagram does not claim ownership of the photos that you post, but it seems like their practice of appropriating user content has not been halted. Similar to Facebook and Twitter, their terms include a clause about granting a transferable and royalty-free license to use and display your content. Instagram makes it explicit that they may use or remix your content for the purposes of advertising and promotion, and can do so without consent or notice to you.

Ownership V.S. Licensing V.S. Processing

Now that we have taken a look at the Terms of Service for these companies and found out that user content belongs to users, what is the problem with sharing this data? A fundamental threat to a user’s privacy lies not in the ownership of content, but rather in the processing of content. Although these platforms do not own the data users upload to their servers, they can make money through the licensing and processing of your data. The sale of content licenses from these platforms to third parties can result in financial gain for these platforms, as discussed for each social platform. In addition, a second way that these platforms can benefit from your data is through the processing of user data to create profiling data about you to create advertising and market research products in which they can sell to third party firms. This profiling data is created by the social media platforms themselves to increase the accuracy of their profile data about your specific demographics, including your likes, dislikes, habits, wants, and expectations.

This data is not only sold by social media platforms to marketing firms such as Acxiom and Experian, but the data is also used in other applications, such as performing background checks on new employees by firms such as Intellius. These firms are known as data brokers, and an investigation by the United States’ Federal Trade Commission discovered that these data brokers buy and sell profiling data from social media platforms. Recently, Facebook updated its policy regarding data brokers after its Cambridge Analytica fiasco and the European GDPR regulation, and reduced the capacity of its Partner Categories program that allowed data brokers access to its trove of profiling data of its users.

The Cost of Using Social Media: Adding Fuel to the Fire

Now that we have a better sense of the uses of our content, we should worry less about the ownership of our content. While content posted on social media can be used for advertisements, these platforms are smart enough to realize that using content in such an explicit way would undoubtably alienate their user base from uploading more and more content. (Although if you think you have a Pulitzer Prize winning shot, watermark it before you post it!)

Instead, we should be more concerned about what licenses we grant when we use social media platforms, as well as what kind of profiling data could be made as a by-product of uploading our content to a central information repository about our habits, likes, and dislikes. Ultimately, all users have a choice to not participate in this information exchange by electing to not engage with platforms that commodify user generated data.

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Always do your own research for informed decisions.

 

Image Credits

user by Three Six Five from the Noun Project

group by Rudez Studio from the Noun Project

license by beth bolton from the Noun Project

https://thenounproject.com/

Sources / Articles You May Be Interested In

Facebook TOS – https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Twitter TOS – https://twitter.com/en/tos

Instagram TOS – https://help.instagram.com/478745558852511

 

Ritzer, G., & Jurgenson, N. (2010). Production, Consumption, Prosumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(1), 13-36. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469540509354673#

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(Toffler_book)

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=0e178580-108a-4394-9fa0-1c6c2f5a6b41

http://adage.com/article/digital/instagram-warns-users-plans-images-ads/238822/

https://towardsdatascience.com/impact-of-data-and-analytics-on-social-media-in-2018-595a3bd4fb60

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/05/ftc-recommends-congress-require-data-broker-industry-be-more

http://www.nyccounsel.com/business-blogs-websites/who-owns-photos-and-videos-posted-on-facebook-or-twitter/

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/technology/23terms.html

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/twitter-puts-trillions-tweets-for-sale-data-miners

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-media-copyright-twitter/photographer-wins-1-2-million-from-companies-that-took-pictures-off-twitter-idUSBRE9AL16F20131122

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