A triumphant Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner came out this morning and said that Facebook agreed to make changes to its privacy policy within a year. The following changes are being touted:

• Denying third-party application developers access to user information without the user’s express consent in each of the categories the applications wants to access (currently, a user clicks just one button and the application can access all info regardless of whether or not it needs it);
• Giving users the opportunity to provide meaningful consent to retain profile pages after their death (currently there is no such provision that I know of);
• Add information about the privacy of non-users;
• Allow users the option of deleting accounts and all information associated with the account from Facebook’s databases (currently, a user may “deactivate” their account, meaning that the info still stays on Facebook’s servers).

This is indeed a meaningful victory. However, it does raise some interesting questions. Facebook is not the only platform out there that indefinitely maintains the information of its users. Other platforms such as Myspace, twitter, countless small(er) sites such as meetmeinto and the ever expanding vacuum of information called Google.

Are the laws on privacy clear? How do they apply to non-Canadian companies? How can they be meaningfully enforced, especially outside borders? I see Facebook’s agreement to comply with laws as largely a goodwill measure. If the company wanted to dig in its heels and refuse to make any changes, what could the Privacy Commissioner have done? Let’s see if someone can answer this question.

Source

Cross-posted on LawIsCool

I’ve lived in London for a weekend now, and here are some first impressions.

• I love where I live. Everything important is within walking distance. Hooray for downtowns.
• The city has greenery. I’m not used to that, but I think it’s a good thing.
• The law school is a little far from my place. I can walk it in about 35 minutes, but I think the bus will be a better option on most days.
• Looking at Google Maps, I realize that the city is smaller than I expected.
• Many people on the street or in parks say “hi”. I have to get used to that.
• The UWO campus is very well done architecturally, but my point of comparison is UofT Scarborough, so I think a shack would be an architectural masterpiece to me right now.
• My favourite computer junk store…uhh…”liquidator” has a London location, but it is on the other side of the city. London is small enough that I’m able to get to it, but I have to find one that’s closer not to waste time.

Sorry that this post is not law related. I promise the next one will be.

Welcome to the brand new blog! This blog is a spin-off of the old LawSchoolBlog.ca. It has become too limiting to blog on that since the title suggests that the blog is only about law school. This is not the case for lawyerling; contributors can blog about anything related to the legal field. For more info, check out the “About” page. To learn more about the contributors, take a look at the “Contributors” page. And to become a contributor, send an email to adminca.

The old LawSchoolBlog posts are saved in the archive. If you are interested in something that I wrote with regards to law school, look under the “archive-LawSchoolBlog” category.

Enjoy!