Corruption Currents: Trends To Look For In 2011 – Corruption Currents – WSJ

The anti-corruption world crackled with activity in 2010, with the U.S. (again) setting Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement records, the Group of 20 turning its gaze toward the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the World Bank amping up its fraud and corruption investigations unit, to name a few major developments.

Zuma Press

But now it’s time to peer into the future, to what promises to be another groundbreaking year on several anti-corruption fronts. We’ve listed below 10 trends we expect to see in 2011. But don’t take our word for it — please, write us with your own forecasts.

More anti-corruption enforcement by foreign nations: The anti-graft group Transparency International found that seven parties to the OECD anti-bribery convention actively enforced it in 2010, up from four in 2009. The U.K. Bribery Act, which takes effect in April, has the potential to reach corruption anywhere on the globe, and U.K. investigators are eager to grab some of the market share from their counterparts in the U.S. Nigeria, meanwhile, has capitalized on U.S. anti-bribery cases, opening its own probes into Halliburton Co., Panalpina Group and others. Earlier this week, authorities in Malaysia and Honduras announced investigations that piggyback on the U.S. probe of French telecommunications company Alcatel-Lucent SA, which agreed to pay $137 million to resolve bribery allegations. And the U.S. now routinely includes language in settlement agreements requiring companies to cooperate with foreign authorities and multilateral development banks.

via Corruption Currents: Trends To Look For In 2011 – Corruption Currents – WSJ.

Report: eDiscovery functionality standardization on the horizon | Messaging Architects

With companies facing an increasing amount of eDiscovery cases, and requiring more assistance to deal with the burden, a recent report from eWeek predicts the advent of functionality standardization for such solutions in 2011.

According to the report, vendors are more conscience of the growing challenges for customers when facing eDiscovery requests. Recognizing this need, more vendor products will begin offering certain email archiving and other capabilities.

This trend will also come as a result of standardized eDiscovery tests. Organizations, such as the eDiscovery Reference Model, will continue efforts to set litigation standards.

According to the eWeek report, the EDRM has a goal to “create and publish peer reviewed testing protocols and create overall testing principals for the unique requirements of the discovery lifecycle.”

A recent Gartner study reflected this report’s predictions. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving also concluded that companies are putting more of an emphasis on eDiscovery functionality when selecting an email archiving solution. An increase in litigation means most companies are expecting at least basic eDiscovery support features to be included in their solutions.

via Report: eDiscovery functionality standardization on the horizon | Messaging Architects.

Europeans concerned over ongoing privacy fraud in U.S. – Computerworld

Self-regulation turns to chaos

But there is much more going on. The rules and policies of Safe Harbor are as soft as butter and there’s no oversight. The main problem lies with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which administers the Safe Harbor list of companies. Companies put themselves on this list through self-certification, without anybody checking anything.

The department itself is clear on this: “In maintaining the list, the Department of Commerce does not assess and makes no representations to the adequacy of any organization’s privacy policy or its adherence to that policy. Furthermore, the Department of Commerce does not guarantee the accuracy of the list and assumes no liability for the erroneous inclusion, misidentification, omission, or deletion of any organization, or any other action related to the maintenance of the list.”

The result of this self-regulation is disastrous. Hundreds of U.S. companies claim they are certified, without meeting the necessary conditions. These problems had already surfaced in 2002 and 2004, when the E.U. commissioned two studies.

In 2008 nothing had improved and the independent research and consultancy company Galexia reached shocking conclusions. Of the 1,597 organizations on the Safe Harbor list, only 348 met all seven principles in the most basic way, Galexia reported.

via Europeans concerned over ongoing privacy fraud in U.S. – Computerworld.

Europeans concerned over ongoing privacy fraud in U.S. – Computerworld

Self-regulation turns to chaos

But there is much more going on. The rules and policies of Safe Harbor are as soft as butter and there’s no oversight. The main problem lies with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which administers the Safe Harbor list of companies. Companies put themselves on this list through self-certification, without anybody checking anything.

The department itself is clear on this: “In maintaining the list, the Department of Commerce does not assess and makes no representations to the adequacy of any organization’s privacy policy or its adherence to that policy. Furthermore, the Department of Commerce does not guarantee the accuracy of the list and assumes no liability for the erroneous inclusion, misidentification, omission, or deletion of any organization, or any other action related to the maintenance of the list.”

The result of this self-regulation is disastrous. Hundreds of U.S. companies claim they are certified, without meeting the necessary conditions. These problems had already surfaced in 2002 and 2004, when the E.U. commissioned two studies.

In 2008 nothing had improved and the independent research and consultancy company Galexia reached shocking conclusions. Of the 1,597 organizations on the Safe Harbor list, only 348 met all seven principles in the most basic way, Galexia reported.

via Europeans concerned over ongoing privacy fraud in U.S. – Computerworld.

BBC News – 2010, the year that privacy died?

For the twin pillars of the web, Google and Facebook, it has been something of an annus horribilis when it comes to privacy.

Facebook’s attempts to make more and more of people’s profiles publicly available and Google’s seemingly laissez-faire attitude to data have made headlines across the world.

People hitherto gung-ho about their digital footprint, knowing little and caring less about the trail of information they leave, have been forced to think a little deeper about their online lives.

Facebook has made no secret of its desire to make the web more social but its increasingly complex privacy settings meant people were starting to give away more information than they wanted to more people than they intended.

“The environment of social networking is designed to encourage people to share. Often the default setting is privacy-unfriendly,” said Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute.

Mark Zuckerberg wants a ‘social’ web

At the start of the year, Facebook’s privacy settings ran to more pages than the US constitution forcing founder Mark Zuckerberg to announce wide-ranging changes in May.

“Making the privacy controls on Facebook comprehensive and easy to understand is an important part of our commitment to giving every person the power to control their own Facebook experience,” the firm said at the time.

But not everyone is convinced it went far enough.

“The changes have made some aspects easier to control but more and more of people’s public profile is being made publicly accessible,” said Mr Brown.

Facebook is beginning to understand the importance of ring-fencing our net conversations, thinks Gus Hosein of Privacy International.

“It has realised that the internet isn’t just one big space where we are yelling at each other. With the introduction of Facebook groups there is now a way of ensuring that my mum doesn’t get all of my updates,” he said.

via BBC News – 2010, the year that privacy died?.

BBC News – 2010, the year that privacy died?

For the twin pillars of the web, Google and Facebook, it has been something of an annus horribilis when it comes to privacy.

Facebook’s attempts to make more and more of people’s profiles publicly available and Google’s seemingly laissez-faire attitude to data have made headlines across the world.

People hitherto gung-ho about their digital footprint, knowing little and caring less about the trail of information they leave, have been forced to think a little deeper about their online lives.

Facebook has made no secret of its desire to make the web more social but its increasingly complex privacy settings meant people were starting to give away more information than they wanted to more people than they intended.

“The environment of social networking is designed to encourage people to share. Often the default setting is privacy-unfriendly,” said Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute.

Mark Zuckerberg wants a ‘social’ web

At the start of the year, Facebook’s privacy settings ran to more pages than the US constitution forcing founder Mark Zuckerberg to announce wide-ranging changes in May.

“Making the privacy controls on Facebook comprehensive and easy to understand is an important part of our commitment to giving every person the power to control their own Facebook experience,” the firm said at the time.

But not everyone is convinced it went far enough.

“The changes have made some aspects easier to control but more and more of people’s public profile is being made publicly accessible,” said Mr Brown.

Facebook is beginning to understand the importance of ring-fencing our net conversations, thinks Gus Hosein of Privacy International.

“It has realised that the internet isn’t just one big space where we are yelling at each other. With the introduction of Facebook groups there is now a way of ensuring that my mum doesn’t get all of my updates,” he said.

via BBC News – 2010, the year that privacy died?.

Document Management System Tools Increases Your Work Efficiency

Document Management System ensures to put the right toolsand the right information in the hands of the right people. From an intelligent document search that helps customer service answer questions more quickly to workflow automation that maintains the pace of business processes and alerts managers to employee action and inaction, a Document management system can help your organization increase productivity and efficiency.

Reduce misfiling, document search and retrieval time and photocopying costs with a single system that manages paper and electronic documents,physical records, multimedia files and e-mail. Using one platform to manage all your organizational information allows you to apply organizational records policies and procedures consistently, regardless of document format.

Autonomy iManage estimates a 20% time savings based on filing and retrieval efficiencies,eliminating misfiling and workflow efficiencies.Increased efficiency, as well as greater staff productivity, can save up to 6,000 hours annually, or 2.4 full-time staff positions.

via Document Management System Tools Increases Your Work Efficiency.

Privacy and Security Fanatic: Lawsuit Claims Microsoft, McDonald’s, Mazda & CBS Used Ads as Cover for Data Mining | Network World

Microsoft, along with McDonald’s, Mazda and CBS have been named in a class action suit filed in Federal Court for working in concert with behavioral advertising specialist Interclick. The companies allegedly used their ads as a “cover for data-mining, to identify the websites people visit, invading people’s privacy, misappropriating their personal information and interfering with the operations of their computers.”

Courthouse News Service reported, “Interclick augmented its profile database with individual-level information it acquired from defendants in the process of optimizing and measuring the success of advertising campaigns. For example, defendants and Interclick cooperated to identify [which] consumers are ‘hand raisers’ who clicked on an advertisement to visit the advertiser’s website, register to enter the advertisers’ sweepstakes or play online games, or make purchases. Interclick’s profiles are stored and analyzed in a data warehouse designed to allow Interclick to mine and correlate the large volumes of highly granular consumers data it acquires.”

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According to the complaint, Microsoft committed violations of computer privacy laws during a 7-month ad campaign for its Windows Smartphone. McDonald’s allegedly committed its offenses during its online World Cup-theme game in the summer of 2010. The complaint accuses CBS of doing it in an online ad campaign for its “online fantasy sports platform” before the 2010 Major League Baseball season began. Mazda is claimed to have run the privacy violating ads for its summer sales and 2010 models. “All of them worked with Interclick, which is not listed as a defendant.”

The suit claims these companies “used browser history sniffing to identify defendants’ competitors with whom consumers communicated” and that “all the consumer information Interclick acquired while executing an ad campaign for any one defendant was merged into Interclick’s consumer profile database and subsequently used for behavioral targeting on behalf of all defendants.”

via Privacy and Security Fanatic: Lawsuit Claims Microsoft, McDonald’s, Mazda & CBS Used Ads as Cover for Data Mining | Network World.

Mobile security firm warns of new Android Trojan | Security – CNET News

Lookout Mobile Security, which just raised fresh capital to boost its fight against mobile malware, said it has identified the peskiest cell phone threat to date.

The Android Trojan, dubbed Geinimi, has cropped up in China and is capable of taking a significant amount of personal data and sending it to remote servers.

Lookout said Geinimi displays botnet-like qualities and is the most sophisticated wireless malware it has seen. Thus far, infected programs have only been seen on various Chinese app stores.

via Mobile security firm warns of new Android Trojan | Security – CNET News.

Faster Forward – Skype brings 3G video calls to the iPhone

The iPhone now makes a decent video phone — even if you’re away from a WiFi hot spot. Skype shipped an update to its free iPhone application Thursday that adds video-calling capability to the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS and the current, fourth-generation iPod touch.

And the new Skype 3.0, unlike Apple’s FaceTime, works over AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband.

That’s not through any cooperation with the wireless carrier, Skype says.

“We’ve not checked with AT&T,” said Neil Stevens, Skype’s vice president and general manager for consumer products, in a Skype interview Wednesday. “We don’t think it’s our position to check in with carriers.”

I tested the new app in a round of brief calls from an iPhone 4, loaned by Apple’s PR department, to an iMac and vice versa, then between that iPhone and a loaner iPod touch. Every call connected in a second or two, stayed up until I ended it myself and delivered Skype’s typically good audio quality. But Skype’s low-resolution video stream looked lousy even over five bars of an AT&T signal, and switching to my home’s faster wireless network didn’t improve it.

via Faster Forward – Skype brings 3G video calls to the iPhone.