Despite the debate about whether tweets are a valid form of writing and what Google and the Library of Congress are doing with tweet archives, privacy etc., I want to write about archiving twitter streams. Perhaps if I put my thoughts out there (on the web) I believe I will be able to find those thoughts later when I need them. In 140 character thought bytes.

Steve has written about the value of tweeting at a conference and Simon F. has written about archiving tweets, but things have changed a bit (byte) as they tend to do.

The Legal . . . [more]

Not that Firefox wasn’t the most customizable browser already, but the upcoming edition will allow you to add and remove elements from all installed toolbars – paring your experience down to a single row, if desired.

As someone who currently uses three rows of toolbars, plus the area taken up by in-browser tabs, screen real estate is always an issue. Moving to larger monitors & screen resolutions does help, but it remains a constant balance between adding functionality -vs- viewable area. Knowing that I’m overly reliant on my ‘bookmarks toolbar’ – which I jam as many essential links into as . . . [more]

Connie Crosby and I will be co-presenting with two American law library colleagues (Jane Edwards and Marlene Coir) in a few weeks at the annual conference of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in Windsor, this year a joint conference with the Michigan Association of Law Libraries.

Our topic is “Legal Research Free and Fast!” and we will be making available a jointly-authored paper that provides an overview and analysis of “free” versus “fee” online research tools.

My personal challenge for the presentation – and I assume perhaps a challenge shared by my co-panelists – is what free Internet-based, law-related . . . [more]

The Canadian Privacy Commissioner is in the midst of consultations on the privacy impacts of online tracking, profiling and targeting. The first public event is a panel discussion taking place today correction – Thursday the 29th in Toronto from 8:30 til 4:15. This event is being webcast. Viewers are invited to pose questions to the panelists.

To follow the consultations on twitter the hashtag is #priv2010. The Privacy Commisioner’s office’s twitter handle is @privacyprivee. . . . [more]

Henry George Bohn said in the 1855 Handbook of Proverbs,

An idle brain is the Devil’s shop.

It’s probably just as applicable today, especially with those recently unemployed in the legal profession.

Henry Russell (supposedly a fake name) is a 37-year-old Los Angeles attorney who has just released a new book, Craigslist Casual Encounters: The Hilarious and Disturbing World of Seeking Sex Online. A year after losing his job he decided it was a good idea to start posting fake advertisements on CraigsList, starting with dryer lint and quickly escalating to ads seeking sex.

Often impersonating . . . [more]

Interesting coincidence? Not sure who is the real threat to privacy.

Yesterday, privacy regulators from 10 countries (Canada, Israel, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Ireland, New Zealand and the U.K.) attacked search giant Google for allegedly lax privacy practices.

And yesterday, Google started publishing stats on requests from law enforcement agencies from around the world to hand over private user data:

“Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead

I am reasonably sure the number of Farmville updates appearing on Facebook News feeds is approaching the number of spam emails sent each day. We need to stop this madness! I say this with all due respect to my friends who are clearly Farmville addicts.

There is an easy way to prevent Farmville updates appearing on your Wall. Simply put your mouse over the item, and click the Hide Farmville button. This will block Farmville updates from appearing on your wall.

Note that this works for updates from any other annoying Facebook apps like Mafia Wars or Birthday Gifts. It . . . [more]

Kathy English discusses this past weekend in The Star some of the issues of online commenting which have been raised here recently,

Would you be willing to express your opinions under your real names?

Can news organizations find a way to compel online commenters to speak out under their true identities? Should the media ever unmask anonymous commenters? Can the courts force them to do so? Should they?

Most importantly, is the end of online anonymity near?

These are important questions now under consideration in news organizations and courts throughout North America. This week, a Nova Scotia judge ordered both

The Ontario e-Laws legislative website has a new look and feel to bring it in line with Ontario government website standards.

The retro avocado green-colored banner is interesting if somewhat garish. That aside, the site appears to retain the same functionality, albeit with frequently-accessed links in slightly different locations.

Presumably one thing driving this is the government’s obligations under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, S.O. 2005, c. 11, to make their website more accessible to persons with disabilities (as explained here by the government).

Expect to see much more discussion in the near future in law . . . [more]

♬ Every time I turn around
Something’s just not right
Just might be paranoid…♬

Lyrics and Music by Nicholas Jerry Jonas, Joseph Adam Jonas, Paul Kevin Jonas II, Cathy Dennis, John Fields, recorded by the Jonas Brothers.

An article on yesterday’s online New York Times entitled: “Cyberattack on Google Said to Hit Password System” by John Markoff sheds some further light on the cyber attacks on Google that appear to have originated from China.

The exact nature of the intrusion and theft is a closely-guarded secret, but Markoff states:

[A] person with direct knowledge of the

Major announcement out of Paris this morning with Figaro and the Wall Street Journal reporting on an Open Letter (une lettre collective) to Google from La Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés. Alex Türk, the Président of CNIL addresses his letter directly to Monsieur Eric Schmidt, Président du conseil d’administration et chef de la direction, Google Inc.

The Italian authorities, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali signed on as well as the Irish Data Commissioner and other privacy and data protection authorities.

Türk’s letter starts: “We are concerned to see that too often, the . . . [more]

This week in biotech, the value was all in the network. Here’s the run-down, from serious to Colbert:

I took a look at the reasons why biotech companies aren’t using social media very much, even though they should. Biotech companies seem to fall in the “late majority” of social media adopters, so those who are online now are the “early adopters” among biotechs, and without many online peers, the value is low. Critical mass is building, though.

Another kind of network — this one of expat Canadians — was spawned recently. C100 is “a select group of Canadians . . . [more]