In an interview with e-Commerce Times, Arnstein & Lehr attorney Misha Kerr made the point abundantly clear that “what you think is a private page is not private, and you never know who has access to it.”

Privacy settings and how you use them are becoming the subject of intense litigation. Kerr represented a person who inadvertently attended a filming party for an adult website.  The young woman never signed a release for her images but ended up on the adult Web site anyway. Kerr sued on behalf of the client, claiming violation of privacy and damage to her reputation.

The defendant responded by showing photos the woman had posted to a social networking site which were risque, arguing that her reputation could not be damaged too seriously. Just a few changes to the woman’s privacy settings could have changed the lawsuit’s outcome.

Many Facebook users face a similar risk of having their private lives exposed if they opted for settings Facebook recommended in December 2009. They may not have understood to what they were were agreeing.

If you fall into this category, read on. If not, you should still read on unless you don’t care about your privacy. The recommended settings are somewhat unsettling.  They give Facebook the right to publicize your own Facebook page’s private information  such as your photos, status updates and items you’ve posted.

The Web site ReadWriteWeb.com lists the three most important privacy settings to make sure you have set to your needs.  The first covers things you share, such as your status updates, photos, videos and other posted items; the second addresses who can see your personal information; and the third determines whether your account is accessible to search engines like Google.

All three  settings and more can be modified. For step-by-step directions, visit the ReadWriteWeb.com link.

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There are conflicting reports on Google’s future in that nation.  National Public Radio (NPR) reports that Google may pull out of China altogether rather than deal with Chinese government censorship.

Google’s controls are not fail-proof, that much is certain.  The attacks on Google appear to be politically motivated.  They originated in China and targeted intellectual property and e-mail accounts of human rights activists. As the  Guardian reports:

“The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in a statement today that Gmail accounts used by journalists in at least two bureaux in Beijing had been hijacked and their emails forwarded to unknown email addresses. Last week several well-known Chinese advocates of human rights complained of the same problem.”

Although it has not been officially confirmed, the attacks targeted people with access to specific parts of Google’s networks. Those efforts may have been helped by Google’s own employees in the company’s China offices.

Guardian reports that the malware (malicious software) used in the attack was a modification of a trojan called Hydraq.  Trojans are hidden programs whose purpose is to provide unauthorized access to a computer.

The malware is not that important.   Who was targeted is at the heart of the matter.  The victims allude to the attack coming from the inside because the assailants knew exactly who they were seeking.  Furthermore, some Google China employees were denied access to internal networks, some were put on leave, and some were transferred to different offices, all shortly after the incident took place.

Google will not comment on its business operations, so it will be interesting to see what transpires, both from legal and business perspectives.  Google will not quickly forget a security breach of this magnitude;  a company always looking to grow may need to  expand upon its security measures as well.

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The company plans to add platforms like Google’s Android, Nokia, Symbian, and Palm.  Furthermore, the firm will introduce API (application programming interfaces) to bring  in content on the Web or in other databases.  And customers will be able to integrate their apps with online services such as Facebook, Twitter, and OpenTable.

One challenge involved in developing an app is determining the platform.  Computerworld reports that BuildAnApp ameliorates this dilemma with proprietary software that enables the app to be delivered on three of the most influential smartphone platforms.

BuildAnApp has 16 basic templates, including one titled “other” that allows for a wider range of page types selected from other templates.  Computerworld says “the company is also developing a ‘pro’ version of the service for skilled developers creating more sophisticated applications.”

BuildAnApp in all likelihood will not support superior development such as that from Rhomobile and Appcelerator, which support languages such as Ruby, JavaScript and HTML.

The company’s focus is to ease development for smaller businesses.  The user picks a template, chooses typical types of pages and populates the app with information.  Once finished, the developer can keep the app private by requiring a password.

Because the program is in beta, customers have a free 30-day trial, after which time they can pay $7.99 for a one-time content or app update or pay $14.99 per month to make unlimited updates.  Customers can take it one step further by paying $59.99 for unlimited updates for six months.  BuildAnApp will also submit the developed app to Apple’s App Store for $19.99, which includes resubmissions in the event that the app is rejected.

Computerworld mentioned an interesting analogy: “Analysts liken the emergence of a service such as BuildAnApp to the evolution of Web development from pure HTML coding to easy-to-use design services such as GeoCities and Blogger.”

A small business could use a mobile website but apps have advantages.  For instance, consumers can access and use the information even when out of range of their wireless networks; an app layout may not only look better than a mobile website, it may also be easier and more logical to use; and apps generally run faster because they operate locally.

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One of these developers is Joe Hewitt, who worked for Firefox and its acclaimed developer plug-in Firebug. He was so agitated with Apple’s policies that he handed off the Facebook iPhone app to another engineer at the company. Ars technica believed that his decision could have been due to an issue with his Three20 framework rather than issues with the Facebook app. However, he later reported to ars technica that it was because of another experience which he was not at liberty to disclose.

The Three20 framework initially derived from work he did to create the Facebook app and it was named for iPhone’s 320-pixel-wide screen. The open source framework is used by several iPhone developers, which gives them drop-in support for several user interface enhancements in their own iPhone apps. Then Apple stepped in by rejecting apps that relied on the framework and used a private API (Application Programming Interface) call, which goes directly against the controversial iPhone Development Agreement. Although Hewitt should have been aware of this issue, it is likely the reason he decided to break away from iPhone development.

Other developers have proposed different reasons for discontinuing their development with Apple. Second Gear developer Justin Williams cited to the way the App Store is being managed and the risks involved for most developers. The recent rejection of Google Voice for iPhone is one example of what Williams was referring to. Fed up, when Williams attempted to transfer his apps to another developer that purchased them, the Apple Developer Connection prohibited this action, making the transfer much more difficult and costly to its users (who had to re-purchase the app), further illuminating his frustrations with Apple.

Apple leaves a sour taste in developers’ mouths for multiple reasons. Developer Rogue Amoeba, maker of many audio apps for Apple, ran into a development problem that derived from an intellectual property issue. Rogue had a minor bug they needed fix in its Airfoil Speakers ToCall app, the update’s purpose was solely to improve the way audio was received and did not change any functionality.

Regardless, Apple rejected its update multiple times. The reason was both predictable and simultaneously illogical: The app uses Apple-approved images and icons. The original app had already been approved and was in the App Store, it used the same mechanism, and Apple had provided developers public API for accessing these very images. And yet, Apple rejected the use claiming that it was an inappropriate use of “Apple-owned Graphic Symbols.” Like Hewitt and Williams, Rogue Amoeba got so aggravated by its experience that it is no longer developing for the iPhone either.

Developers are starting to question whether they should invest so much time and effort into iPhone development only to have their apps or ideas rejected. These frustrations that Apple has caused could be good news for Google’s Android. But it is unknown whether developers will give Android a try next.

The good news for Apple: in the app world there are plenty of other developers waiting for a chance to catch lightning in a bottle.

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The messages include traditional voice messages as well as Google Voice’s innovative new feature, transcribed voice messages.  What was most worrisome for Google was the inadvertent invasion of privacy, in which callers’ phone numbers and names are listed.

However, i4u.com reported that there was a possibility that the files were nothing more than promotional or test recordings done by Google.  If that were true, it still begs the question: why would these  recordings be hidden unless of course they weren’t promotional or test recordings at all?

The Boy Genius Report has reportedly received information that could clear up any confusion Google had created:

“UPDATE: It seems as if these voicemails have been publicly posted/shared online and Google indexes them. Here’s official word:

‘Since the initial idea behind posting a voicemail, was precisely to share it with others, we did not restrict crawling of those messages that users post on the web, but we can certainly understand that users would want to make them public on their sites but not necessarily searchable directly outside of their own website. We made a change to prevent those to be crawled so only the site owner can decide to index them.’”

Techcrunch.com claims that as a result, Google has decided to change its policy and no longer indexes the voice messages.

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