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EFF: Trust Twitter — Not Apple Or Verizon — To Protect Your Privacy

Posted by Soulskill on from the trust-a-flash-drive-encased-in-concrete-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean dept.

tdog17 writes "Verizon and MySpace scored a zero out of a possible six stars in a test of how far 18 technology service providers will go to protect user data from government data demands. Twitter and Internet service provider Sonic.net scored a perfect six in the third annual Electronic Frontier Foundation 'Who Has Your Back?' report. Apple, AT&T and Yahoo ranked near the bottom, each scoring just one star. 'While we are pleased by the strides these companies have made over the past couple years, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Amazon holds huge quantities of information as part of its cloud computing services and retail operations, yet does not promise to inform users when their data is sought by the government, produce annual transparency reports, or publish a law enforcement guide. Facebook has yet to publish a transparency report. Yahoo! has a public record of standing up for user privacy in courts, but it hasn't earned recognition in any of our other categories. Apple and AT&T are members of the Digital Due Process coalition, but don’t observe any of the other best practices we’re measuring. ... We remain disappointed by the overall poor showing of ISPs like AT&T and Verizon in our best practice categories.'"

4 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. What is this Reddit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    EFF never said "Trust Twitter — Not Apple Or Verizon — To Protect Your Privacy"

  2. the EFF has no idea by stenvar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The EFF ranks these companies based on what they say they do for privacy. Nobody knows what they actually do. For all we know, Twitter may be an FBI/CIA front, or bound by some gag order. You can't trust online providers at all, and any use of an online service is a calculated risk, trading some privacy for some utility. Publishing this kind of nonsense, the EFF does more harm than good, by giving users a false sense of privacy and security.

    1. Re:the EFF has no idea by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

      Considering the lengths the Stasi went to get information, they must be kicking themselves. It could have been so easy, all you have to give your people is a few silly games and trinkets and they hand over their privacy gleefully.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  3. Not who to trust by Spad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't who to trust, this is who is the least worst when it comes to handing over your information to the government or various corporate interests using the government as their proxy (RIAA, etc.).

    Nothing in this report accounts for how the companies themselves treat your private data, just how they respond to requests from law enforcement.