Personalized ads might be coming to Gmail Android

Recently updated, the Gmail application for Android carries signs of the imminent arrival of advertising.

The Android Police website, analyzed the last updated Gmail for Android 4.6. The site was not disappointed, since among the novelties of this version, they came back with clues about the arrival of advertising on the app.

A new library named "ads" - has appeared. In it, a series of XML files evoking multiple ad formats, but also a command that refers to the page of the user's preferences, suggesting that the custom settings (used for targeting) could be part of .
 

Even thought Google has already started sending Sponsored mails via Gmail, the service does not appear, for the moment, to include advertising. This situation could change in the future, at least for the Android application, if the company decided to integrate the elements cited above in its APK.

Stay tuned!

Twitter has got your back!

Privacy in the digital age means a lot of things to a lot of people. From social networks to government surveillance, people always seem to be concerned.
But let's not kid ourselves. Complaining about privacy has become nothing but a way to express the "geek side" or an additional item to the black geek glasses to complete the "geeky look" . For all the complaining, no one is going to do much about it. Hence the sense of what is private shrinks.

However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has posted its annual report (Who has your back?) on which Internet vendors do the most to help protect their users' private information.

The most privacy-oriented companies should comply with these policies:

1. Requiring a Warrant for Content
2. Telling Users About Government Data Requests
3. Publishing Transparency Reports
4. Publishing Law Enforcement Guidelines
5. Fighting for Users’ Privacy in Court
6. Fighting for Users’ Privacy in Congress

2013 Results

Although these results might not comply with your expectations, you must keep in mind that the report is about the government access to user's data.

"We’re happy to report that several of the companies included in last year’s report have significantly improved their practices and policies concerning government access to user data"
  
"Readers of this year’s annual privacy and transparency report should be heartened, as we are,by the improvements major online service providers made over the last year."

In the end,  EFF thinks that things are getting better among these vendors that deal with so much user data, and it seems that they're really happy with Twitter's improvement:

"This year two companies received all six possible stars: Sonic.net and Twitter. We are extremely pleased to recognize the outstanding commitment each of these companies has made to public transparency around government access to user data."

and a bit disappointed with Google's latest statement:

"We notify users about legal demands when appropriate, unless prohibited by law or court order."

To read the full EFF annual report: https://www.eff.org/sites/default/files/filenode/who-has-your-back-2013-report.pdf

Whatsapp and Skype to be blocked in KSA?

Online communications services such as Skype and WhatsApp may be blocked in Saudi Arabia if they do not provide the means to monitor their content, declared today, sources in the telecommunications industry.

"Telecommunications companies were asked by the authorities to come up with the operators of these platforms applications to an agreement to monitor the content," said a source regulator in the Saudi Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC).

 


"The CITC has been given a one-week period, which ends on Saturday, to the telecommunications companies to get a response regarding content monitoring" an official of the Saudi Telecommunication Co . (STC), one of the three operators of the country, stated.

After this time, the CITC may block the popular WhatsApp and Skype applications for smartphones and internet telephony, he continued.

In addition to STC, Saudi Arabia has two other operators, Mobily and Zain and according to an industry source, these are companies that have asked the CITC to take action against these online communication services under the claim of unfair competing.

We have to mention that in the United Arab Emirates,most applications like Skype are blocked by the regulator of the country, apparently to protect the commercial interests of the two local operators Etisalat and Du.

Audacity.

For those who follow this blog regulary, don't worry this is still a tech related post; for the others, well, I don't really care about you. Unless you're planning to become a regular.

In this post we'll be talking about a behavior that really bugs me, which is audacity.
First I'm going to define it, then I'm going to show you some examples.

Definition: Rude or disrespectful behavior.


First example:

"She had the audacity to pick up the receiver and ask me to hang up".

Our second example will be "Scroogled"

When we talk about lack of security, vulnerability, spyware, malware and viruses the first thing that comes to you mind is Microsoft.

Microsoft, the mother of the infamous IE which seems to constantly be in the news for its security issues and vulnerabilities (take a look IE wiki page);
Microsoft the mother of the newly born windows 8 surface that sends data to Microsoft about each application that is installed in Windows 8, which is a very serious privacy problem.
(The process is well described by canadian security researcher Nadim Kobeissy )


Now, this Microsoft that earned its reputation is starting a campaign agaisnt google privacy (gmail to be more specific) just to promote their outlook.com, which, it happens, that also display ads.

This is audacity.

Our Third and last example is of course Google:

Google does read your sent and recieved mail. I just wanted to make clear this up. And here's Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

"We don’t need you to type at all. We know where you are, with your permission; we know where you’ve been, with your permission; we can more or less know what you’re thinking about." - Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at the The Atlantic Washington Ideas Forum in 2010.

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Consumer Privacy.

You all know, that google has this browser named Chrome. And what you might not all know is that chrome, like any other browser have a private surfing mode or "incognito" as Google named it.
Now when start you chrome with incognito mode, this is the message that will be displayed :

This is like me, trashing new readers at the beginning of my post and bitching later about how no one is following me.

And finally, I know this post might not be interesting for the most of you; but I think that "Audacity" is the word of this century and I wanted to have some fun with it.

If you're not paying for it, you're the product

This might be the shortest blog post ever but it's something that came to my mind when I was reading about the Instagram backlash and I had to share it.
And this is more like a message to every "facebooker" or "instagramer" out there who gets shocked every time a line get added to the terms of service and to every wise-a$$ who goes through these terms line by line trying to show us how they get to screw us. So here it is :

WTF did you expect? Where do you think you're Living?? Utopia??

This is the real world.. Nothing is free.

And here's an old comment that got famous from "Metafilter" that describe it best:

Facebook Poke Vs. Snapchat

Snapchat what the first and only app that let you exchange pictures with caption for a limited time. It was initially released on september 2011.

"The first real-time picture chatting app is now available on Android!
Snapchat is the fastest way to share a moment with friends.
You control how long your friends can view your message -
simply set the timer up to ten seconds and send.
They'll have that long to view your message and then it disappears forever.
We'll let you know if they take a screenshot!"        Snapchat as described on the playstore.



Yesterday, Facebook announced  Facebook poke a very similar app to snapchat. 

“With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you’re up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you’ve set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app. “         Facebook announcement


So, to make it easier on you here's a simple comparision between these two apps:

Snapchat	Facebook Poke
Text, Drawing over images, Photos, videos, 10 seconds video limits, screenshot alerts, countdown clock
Sharing time 1-10 seconds	Sharing time : 1,3,5,10 seconds
No location service	Location service
33 caracters/photo caption	120 Message caracter
Photos deleted from servers for ever after the countdown.	Facebook terms of service

I know what you're thinking, Facebook poke is so much better. Well based on this comparison I can't blame you but there is something to be careful about : Facebook terms of service which implies that even that you're Facebook friends won't be able to see your pictures after the countdown, Facebook still keeps these photos in their servers.

Additional remarks: 

• Facebook Poke claims that it deletes the encryption keys two days after they’re read so they’re unreadable. Key backups are destroyed within 90 days, making a poke completely inaccessible but still no practical evidence and the app is still running under Facebook's terms of service.
• After 1 day of its launch, Facebook Poke is the #1 App in the Apple app store, followed by Google maps.