Opinion

Privacy: The Worst Quotes of the Year

From massive data breaches to insidious new ways to deliver ads online, we found plenty of privacy lowlights in 2007. So many, in fact, that we’re introducing a new award. Ladies and gentlemen, the 2007 Privvy Awards for outstanding quotability regarding privacy.

By Scott Berinato

excerpt comes from from Zuckerberg’s online diary. It was published, along with many other documents from Zuckerberg’s lawsuit with former Harvard peers who claim he stole the idea for Facebook from them, by Harvard’s navel-gazing mag called 02138 in a good piece of journalism by Luke O’Brien.

Zuckerberg suddenly didn’t like the openness and lack of privacy on the Internet that had made him rich, and he moved to have the documents removed from the site, saying they were improperly leaked by the plaintiffs. The reporter had done his due diligence, though, and the judge denied the request, saying in his ruling, "What 02138 undertook was, it seems to me, core First Amendment activity, to comment upon matters of public interest. Moreover, the appending of the source documents is, it seems to me, fundamentally beneficial to expression...[and] a salutary development in journalism generally, one that one can treat as providing for a more democratic, if unruly, form of expressive activity" (Page 93 of the ruling). Score one for journalism, and schadenfreude. (Source: 01238mag.com.)

Congratulations to all the winners. Have a safe and private New Year.

Executive Editor Scott Berinato can be reached at sberinato@cxo.com.

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