Currently, 60 percent of Facebook’s teen users have implemented privacy controls, compared with only 25 percent to 30 percent of adult users. This is an interesting statistic, given the common assumption that members of the younger generation don’t care who sees their data. It is probably also a sign to entrepreneurs that there will be greater demand in the future for people to do more with their profiles, meaning more than one. That particular question brought up more controversy than one might expect.

If people could have more than one profile, argued Facebook’s Chris Kelly, the user experience would break down.

“It is important to have a single identity, and you may want to show different parts to different people,” he said.

Not everyone was convinced. Indeed, as Jim Dempsey pointed out, in real life people often showcase very distinct identities in different situations.

When at work, for example, people have a career persona. When at a spouse’s event, they don their spouse persona, and when picking up their children from school, they show their parent persona. Many people like to keep these personas separate. Now, of course, people often tell coworkers about their kids, but they don’t necessarily want to be defined that way in the context of their workplace. Being able to keep these identities apart in a more convenient way may very well be the next big social network innovation that consumers can’t wait to embrace.

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Wow. George Orwell had nothing on these guys.

The photographs are not live and were taken from a device with multiple cameras attached to a car that drove down each available street. The problem for some is that the cameras took photos of people not expecting to be photographed and broadcast across the Net. There are photos of women sunbathing at Stanford University, a man caught urinating in San Bruno, Calif., and a very clear picture of a woman’s thong underwear as she was getting into her truck.

Google argues that the photos are “no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street.” That’s true if you can see the image for a few minutes and then it disappears, or if it is a random photo from a camera phone posted online. However, that’s not how it works.

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Read more here.

E-passports employ the use of radio frequency identification. RFID tags store unique data sets that can be read electronically and have been used successfully for decades on rugged terrain and in punishing environments. Wal-Mart has lauded RFID’s ability to improve its supply chain, and the U.S. military entrusts the tags to track cargo in the deadliest combat zones.

Embedded in the back of these “next gen” passports, RFID tags duplicate the same personal information printed in the passport — name, birth date, passport number, state and a digitized photograph. The tags will be scanned by domestic customs officials to validate the printed information in order to deter fraudsters, illegal immigrants and unwanted predators from entering American territory.

At a time when fake Social Security cards and driver’s licenses can be bought on the street for a few hundred dollars, toughening the nation’s most important identity document is a good start for improving border control. Of course, e-passports don’t come without their naysayers.

Read more here.

Recently proposed legislation by Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican, threatens to effectively stop minors from accessing social networking sites in schools or libraries. His Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) would prohibit schools and libraries from allowing access to a commercial social-networking Web site or chat room through which minors might be subject to sexual material or advances. For many kids, that amounts to a ban on using the sites from anywhere outside the home.

Read more here.

California might have a reputation for supporting civil liberties but on the national ID debate the state is moving to comply blindly with federal mandates. Just this week, California’s Senate Transportation Committee approved a measure that would bring the state into compliance with the Real ID Act.

New Hampshire, on the other hand, is kicking up a storm warning of big brother and what some consider “the mark of the beast.” Indeed, last month the New Hampshire House passed a bill barring the state from taking part in Real ID, rejecting it as a de facto national ID system.

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Read more here.

AOL has partnered with Goodmail Systems to offer its customers a service called “CertifiedEmail,” which is designed to protect users from phishing and other online fraud. This is a good idea, yet the California Senate Committee on E-Commerce, Wireless Technology and Consumer Driven Programming, led by Senator Dean Florez (D-Shafter) is second-guessing the concept.

According to the Goodmail Web site, “CertifiedEmail service offers legitimate, accredited senders the opportunity to assure their messages are reliably delivered and presented to consumers as authentic and safe to open. The CertifiedEmail service is available to reputable, responsible organizations for a small per-message fee.” Charging a fee for the guaranteed delivery of legitimate mail seems like a good way to start taking a real bite out of the spam problem, but not everyone agrees.

Goodmail’s program “is the beginning of the end of the Internet as we know it,” Joan Blades, co-founder of the left-leaning MoveOn.org told the Florez committee.

Those who are frustrated with loads of unwanted mail might think Blades’ comments are supportive of change, but her group and others — like the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) — are worried about creating a two-tiered Internet and what they call an “email tax.”

Broken System

In a February 28, 2006, open letter to AOL, the UFW said that Goodmail’s spam solution “is a threat to the free and open Internet” that “would create a two-tiered Internet in which affluent mass e-mailers could pay AOL a fee that amounts to an “e-mail tax” for every e-mail sent.” The letter is signed by groups like Common Cause, which typically don’t rise up to fight taxes, so one might wonder what’s really going on. The answer is two-fold.

First, some people want everything to be free even if it means the entire system is broken for everyone. Second, it is difficult for some people to accept change even if it moves the environment in a better direction. It is clear that the current system is broken.

One need look no farther than one’s inbox to figure that out, but in addition, AOL estimates that 80 percent of all e-mail is blocked. That’s a big chunk of mail consuming a good deal of ISP resources — and consumers are harmed when they still have to deal with the junk mail and scams that aren’t blocked.

Those who think that the current e-mail system is “free” need to consider the value of time spent dealing with spam and phishing scams. It is indeed free for spammers to send mail, yet it is the innocent recipients who pay the price. Where’s the common cause in that?

Read more here.

The reason most people’s inboxes are overflowing with nasty bits of unwanted, unsolicited e-mail is because the economics of the entire system encourage it. Economists call the problem the “tragedy of the commons,” which occurs when individuals exploit common resources at the expense of others. That is, spammers send e-mail for free, yet it costs those receiving it billions for network maintenance costs and lost productivity time.

Real Life

E-mail spam is a huge problem, because users have not been able to effectively establish property rights over their inboxes. One of the ways to potentially solve this problem is through an idea called e-stamps: in order to send mail, a sender would have to attach an electronic stamp.

In an ideal world, corporations and other people unknown to the receiver would pay for stamps, but individuals and corporations who know each other could issue the encrypted stamps for communication between themselves for free.

That is the theory. What’s happening in real life is a first step toward fixing the problem.

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Read more here.