1. Background In 2022, Internet Safety Labs (ISL) conducted an extensive benchmark of EdTech apps used in schools across the United States. We sampled 13 schools in each state and the District of Colombia and identified 1,722 unique apps which were in use In K12...
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 16, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Me2B Alliance, a non-profit standards and advocacy organization focused on safe and respectful technology, today published a Spotlight Report which illustrates the significance of permission, relevance, and control when it comes to location tracking in websites and mobile apps. According to Me2BA’s research, 55% of people say it is “creepy” when websites know their location when they are first opened. In total, 81% of respondents used at least one negative term, including creepy, bad, annoying, scary, and confusing, to describe location tracking in websites. 68% used those same negative terms to describe location tracking in mobile apps.
The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) established the California Privacy Protection Agency (“CPPA”). The CPPA has full administrative power and authority to implement the CCPA and CPRA, which basically means that the CPPA will be in charge of updating regulations and adopting new regulations, while enforcement of these regulations will be done by both the CPPA and the Attorney General’s office.
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Me2B Alliance, a non-profit standards organization which advocates for safe and respectful technology, today announced the publication of its first official recommendation: “The Attributes for Safe and Respectful Me2B Commitments.” The recommendation outlines baseline best practices to ensure that safe interactions, or commitments, are taking place on websites and mobile applications. Some examples of these commitments include creating an account online, signing up for newsletters, or agreeing to accept cookies while browsing a website.
We’re delighted to announce that the Me2B Alliance has published its first official recommendation: “The Attributes for Safe and Respectful Me2B Commitments”.
This is a significant milestone for the organization that was the fruit of the entire community.
What does this mean?
What an official recommendation (or specification) means is that, similar to virtually all standards developing organizations, the document has gone through multiple approval stages.
Over the past month, the Me2B Alliance product testing team has been investigating something we refer to as “dangling domains” and the risks they pose to people, especially children and families.
A “dangling domain” refers to any URL/domain previously owned by a legitimate organization or business, but which has been either abandoned due to the business shutting down, or due to a mistake where the organization or business forgets to renew their own domain.
The reality of online data flows is nothing like what we expect. Our personal data flows do not start light and increase with time and trust. Instead, a firehose of personal information is released – and shared with a host of unseen third parties – as soon as we open an app or website. Me2BA’s Respectful Tech Specification V.1 is largely focused on testing for these invisible parallel dataverse data flows.
The Me2B Respectful Tech Specification measures technology behavior against 10 attributes that respectful Me2B Commitments should possess. These attributes represent how technology should treat us and our data at every step along the Me2B Relationship Lifecycle.
Over the course of the digital Me2B Lifecycle, individual “Me-s” (Data Subjects) will have the choice of deepening the relationship through a series of Me2B Commitments with the online vendor, “B” (Data Controller). This guide provides examples of common Commitments and Deals, and shows how they map to the stages of a Me2B Lifecycle. It also reflects social norms for being anonymous, recognized, or known at each stage.
When we started drafting the Respectful Tech Specification a couple of years ago, it was immediately obvious that we didn’t have an adequate vocabulary to describe personal experiences in the digital world—never mind measure them.
The key to creating a safety standard to measure the behavior of technology is the ability to take several contexts into consideration, including the current status of the Me2B relationship. The Me2B Lifecycle model provides a framework and vocabulary to articulate and account for the dynamic “relationship context” over time when evaluating the behavior of technology.
Me2B Relationships in the digital world have even more layers than those in the physical world. In addition, our relationship with connected technology includes a set of “hidden affiliates” (third party integrations) that most of us are not aware of. This guide describes how these relationships – conscious or not – emerge as we interact with digital technologies.
The Me2B Deals or transactions that occur online typically involve three types of “currency”: money, attention or data. The individual consumer (Me) exchanges one of these currencies for goods or services online. Data monetization has emerged as the primary method of income generation to subsidize so-called “free” digital services, with little to no regulation or oversight. What sets online data monetization apart from the other two currencies is that often, customers have no idea what they are paying with – or that they are paying at all.