Comments for SIIA Digital Discourse

Comment on Mobile Payments Get Currency by Mark MacCarthy

Mark MacCarthy — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:48:20 +0000

I want to focus on the area of agreement with Harley. His work highlights the possibility that actors in the emerging mobile payments market could share more information than was shared in traditional payments card transactions. He’s right, and he’s gotten the attention of policymakers on this point. Jessica Rich, head of the FTC’s Office of Financial Practices, summed up the situation at the end of today’s mobile payments workshop by saying that players in the mobile payments space “could collect rich data sets from consumers.”

But market participants know this exchange of information can only be done successfully with consumer permission. They have built privacy protections and choice mechanisms into their systems from the beginning. So these possible privacy risks for consumers are not present in the market because market players have controlled them. As Harley says, “companies have built in user controls to mitigate the risks of exposing consumer information.” So consumers should feel confident that they can use the new mobile payment technologies, get all the benefits of extra convenience, innovation and security AND control information sharing for marketing purposes arising from this context of mobile payments. The job now for the industry, for privacy advocates and for policymakers is to keep the market moving in this positive direction.

Comment on Mobile Payments Get Currency by Harley Geiger

Harley Geiger — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:58:38 +0000

Hello. I am the author of the CDT blog post on mobile payments & privacy, to which your post links. The privacy risks I discuss are not “speculative” at all, and your post supplies the proof: companies have built in user controls to mitigate the risks of exposing consumer information. I wrote about the privacy risks of mobile payment services that do not have strong user controls. Clearly some of the companies have built in user controls because they foresee the very same risks I describe. This is an important issue for the industry to address – surveys consistently show consumers strongly oppose the disclosure of personal information via mobile payments.

It’s great that some companies have enabled consumers to withhold personal contact information without affirmative consent. In fact, I specifically call upon companies to do so at the end of my own post! These and other user controls will help maintain consumer trust and avoid unnecessary regulation – but the controls must be meaningful and should apply to all the companies in the mobile payment ecosystem. The mobile payments marketplace is still nascent and we will see many more services over time, and likely not all the companies that enter this market will be scrupulous with consumer data. Remember also that the privacy issues relate not just to mobile payment service providers, but also third party apps connected to the core service, like a budget or coupon app linked to the mobile wallet.

Thanks for linking to my blog post and for discussing this issue.

Sincerely,

Harley Geiger
Policy Counsel
Center for Democracy & Technology

Comment on Just Do It (Again): How Virtual and Video Game Labs Give Students the Freedom to Fail by Zombie games

Zombie games — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 07:46:38 +0000

Many people use games as an introduction or a closing to their activities. However, it’s a good idea to add them throughout your day, between or as a part of a larger event. Games are a great way to break up the monotony of a long day’s learning, or a hard day’s work. They are also a great way to keep small children busy and big children happy.

Comment on SIIA Survey: Marketing Executives Believe Social Media is an Effective Tool; Not Yet Investing Significant Resources by Staci Davidson

Staci Davidson — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:27:50 +0000

Excellent findings. It is understandable Executives want trackable results and the tools are becoming more useful to measure success. At the same time, social media has scaled the one-to-one relationship and developing meaningful relationships with strangers that turn into customers and customers that turn into raving fans is winning out big time – especially, for companies that are getting involved right now.

Comment on Congress: Let’s Battle Cyber Crime Together by accident attorney

accident attorney — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:16:54 +0000

Thefts of identities are becoming more and more common as the Internet gradually becomes engrained in our society. However, the fact that this crime is very common does not make it less serious in the eyes of the courts. Cyber crimes, including these types of thefts of personal information, leave a nasty trail behind, making it harder for attorneys to fight for their clients in these cases. This is why it is so vital to have one who understands the nature of the crime as well as the laws that surround computer crimes.

Comment on The Stop Online Piracy Act Arrives by Curtis J Neeley Jr., MFA

Curtis J Neeley Jr., MFA — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:41:18 +0000

It has taken over three years in United States Court thus far. Neeley v NameMedia Inc., et al,(5:09-cv-05151)(11-2558) Briefed and before the three Eighth Circuit judges to INVENT. Three judges will INVENT another reason to support the Internet of nearly free pornography. Otherwise; The wide-open Internet will no longer exist unregulated. ============================================== Appellant Brief PDF Appellee Brief of NameMedia Inc PDF Appellee Brief of Google Inc PDF Appellant Reply Brief PDF MOTION Pre-ruling Motion for en banc review PDF < < < DENIED ===========================================

Comment on Debunking the Myths of Cloud Computing: Cloud Computing Is not Secure by Jordan Krizman

Jordan Krizman — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:13:19 +0000

Very insightful. A few more things to consider: an on-premise system is at risk for fires, floods, earthquakes etc. If the data is only stored at your location, one natural disaster can cause you to lose everything.

Also, on-premise software companies are now positioning themselves to have cloud-based versions of their software. These offerings are commonly not truly cloud based, but merely hosted versions of on-premise software.

(see http://blog.360cloudsolutions.com/fake-hosted-cloud/ )

Comment on Take the Vision K-20 Survey – closes Thursday, June 30 by Hugh McNally

Hugh McNally — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:18:10 +0000

Links to the survey and site in this article are broken… verbatim from the HTML of this page:

href=”../../visionK20/”

The actual URLs are:

http://www.siia.net/visionK20/

and

http://www.siia.net/visionk20/survey/survey.asp

Comment on Checking in: SIIA Midmarket Growth Conference 2011 by Konny Zsigo

Konny Zsigo — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:14:26 +0000

I’m excited to speak at this year’s conference. We have dramatic developments that will accelerate the adoption of performance marketing on smartphones & tablets. It will be the first time I’ve ever spoken about it openly. | konny zsigo, president, WDA

Comment on Member video: Gain a clearer perspective on cloud computing by George Gatsis

George Gatsis — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:04:28 +0000

Mike does a nice synopsis in where cloud computing is today and where it is heading.