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Submission + - Walmart Labs Tries New Tech (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Walmart's Labs division is setting up a 'big and fast data group' to explore ways to take advantage of the huge amounts of information it has about shopping behavior and combine it with social-networking data, said Venky Harinarayan, Walmart's senior vice president of global e-commerce and head of Walmart Labs. For example, finding out when people in Wisconsin start mentioning college football in status updates could help the company decide when to start putting team merchandise on shelves in that state, he said. 'This actually has been playing really, really well over the last few weeks as we've started engaging some of this,' he said. Mining social-networking data 'can impact billions of dollars of merchandise if we get it right,' he added."

Submission + - The Privatization of Copyright Lawmaking (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The biggest misperception about SOPA is that it is somehow unprecedented or extraordinary. It is not. SOPA represents just the latest example of copyright law defined and controlled not by the government but by private entities. Copyright owners will deploy SOPA in the same way they have behaved in the past: to extend out their rights. They will disrupt sites that do not infringe a copyright, interfere with fair uses of copyrighted works, and take other steps that evade the limits that the Copyright Act sets on a copyright owner’s actual rights."
Google

Submission + - Google Plus Already Affecting Search Results (google.com)

Submitted by
tetrahedrassface
tetrahedrassface writes: "John Mark Troyer of VMware has noted in a post over on Google Plus that the recent implementation of Google Pages is already affecting search results. From the post, 'below are two searches for VAAI, a VMware-related acronym. On the left, I'm logged in to Google. On the right, logged out. On the left, the third result is from +Rich Brambley, someone I have in a Circle. That URL does not appear until page 3 of the logged out Google search. Another result from a blogger in one of my circles comes in as result #5 when logged in and not until on page 6 when logged out. (not shown)
What's the take home?
For Google+ users: be careful who you circle. It could affect your world view!

For organizations with pages:
* Make it easy for people to circle bloggers who write about you. Share good content from others! Share a circle!
* Start building your Google+ community. It will change how people find information about you and your activities.
* SEO just got a lot more complicated.
For journalists and media organizations:
* Sorry ZDNet, you just got bumped by a blogger."
Privacy

Submission + - Twitter's privacy policy and the Wikileaks case (dubfire.net)

Submitted by Rand310
Rand310 writes: The federal judge in the Wikileaks case cited in his order a version of Twitter's privacy policy from 2010, rather than the very different policy that existed when Appelbaum, Gonggrijp and Jonsdottir created their Twitter accounts back in 2008. That older policy actually promised users that Twitter would keep their data private unless they violated the company's terms of service.

If the judge were to examine the privacy policy that existed when these three targets signed up for a Twitter account, he might decide that they do in fact have a reasonable expectation of privacy and that the government needs a warrant to get the data.
Privacy

Submission + - Icelandic MP to challenge US Court Ruling on Twitt (guardian.co.uk)

Submitted by JabrTheHut
JabrTheHut writes: The Guardian has a story of how Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former Wikileaks volunteer, is challenging the US' acquisition of Twitter account information, IP addresses, mailing addresses and even bank information. The US says it wanted these details to help with it's investigation into Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

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