All IBMers had access to this micro-blogging status and unlike Twitter, he/she was able to post the customers name. IBM guidelines prevent employes from specifically sharing customer names unless authorized. Had it not been for he/she stating she was working with “Endicott College”, the thread would not have generated local responses and the details that followed.

Now I took great interest as any business would love to have open range chats and discuss confidential possible customer data.  The article went on to give a fictitious scenario in how the flow would work, allowing the employee to get feedback ad possible insights into the new lead.  What caught my eye is a few things I pieced together from numerous posts.  IBM does have a new initiative around social business.  Even going so far as to grade performance on use of the tools, followers and sharing (unconfirmed but heard from numerous places inside).  Further up in this social lead passing article a mention was made how the IBMer connects to the possible lead.

After a couple conversation, connecting on LinkedIN, and additional information is provided, the customer wants to see how the product works and talk with other customers.

Some may have just caught where I was going with this posting.  I went to LinkedIn, searched for employees at IBM that are in inside sales, telecenter and more and soon found I could watch as they connected to companies after becoming connected myself.

So the idea about social lead sharing takes an interesting twist in security when you blend external data sites along with internal communication channels.  I know many reps that never even check in using Foursquare or other services for fear that competitors are watching where they go.  LinkedIn provides even more information as it shows exactly who they are talking to at the companies themselves.

Watch how you blend customer data and social privacy management.  Couple this with rating employees on social interaction and some things are bound to slip through.

In this short screencast I walk you through the coming setup for Facebook Messages and what privacy concerns you should have.  Pay special attention to the links below for the direct links to the help files on the new Facebook Messages you will all soon have rolled out.

• Overall Q&A on Facebook Messages
• Privacy controls for Facebook Messages

Everyone should make sure you have selected a custom name on Facebook.  If not, this setup will force you to do so.  The sooner you grab one, the better your chance at getting the name you want.  You can see my personal URL in the screencast or better yet, join my Facebook Network.

Remember, you can find me as IdoNotes across all the networks

Courtesy: Telegraph

What does this mean for your privacy?  Your habits, places of preference and more leave your immediate control.  Sure, you can remove the tag of you in that location, but aggregators and Facebook themselves have already seen it.  Advertising dollars are built around it.  Even the ACLU in California has stepped in to write an article on the topic:

Places allows your friends to tag you when they check in somewhere, and Facebook makes it very easy to say “yes” to allowing your friends to check in for you. But when it comes to opting out of that feature, you  are only given a “not now” option (aka ask me again later). “No” isn’t one of the easy options.

One of the other factors invading on your privacy is the controls around “Here Now”.  Many of the added applications you have nejoyed have been authorized full access to you profile data.  So as soon as someone tags you in a Place, or you do it yourself, that information may be passed along to the other applications.  You will need to review the apps to see what data access they have as well.

So what do you do?

• Use the service carefully
• Set the privacy controls before anyone starts tagging you in Places
• Limit who can see your Places
• Tag yourself only in public arenas and maybe when you are leaving in most instances (not arrival unless it is a meeting)
• Read the tutorial written by DotRights.org on this topic of the steps you need to take

Location services are a constant topic I write about and Facebook exploding the ability to 500 million users without granular privacy controls could change the landscape.

Also, catch up on the recent podcasts from TheSocialGeeks where you get to hear a roundtable of the top social media minds go after these topics.

• the new Facebook security and privacy choices
• HTC EVO
• location services
• and a couple random topics

All the show bookmarks are included in the show notes.  The crew included Caleb Elston, Jeff Smith, Sarah Perez, Corvida, Wayne Sutton and myself for just at one hour and some change.

This first tool is from Rabid Gremlin and is simply called Privacy Check.

You can visit the original source to see it in larger mode online.  Or feel free to subscribe!

Another Spiked Studio Production

The problem is, this is only seen when you log in via the web interface.  For new users, this is a common occurrence.  For power users and more, there are a slew of mobile and desktop clients in use that will never show this change.

How many of you use the phone number that might be known or an email address commonly known?  Most of you do and would say that it shouldn’t make a difference in any case.  But that shouldn’t be true.

I should have to opt in to have this information shared and the boxes themselves should not be checked automatically when I log in.  The default setting should be to disallow this type of search with explanation of what enabling these could expose.

The second portion was the ability to leave the selection to later.  Are these email addresses and phone numbers being exposed anywhere outside of the ability to find and add friends?    I didn’t see anything in the online help system for Twitter and only a few scattered articles.

Either way, get in there and establish your settings by logging in via the web interface.

Well an invite I received today for Stalqer changed that whole theory.  The URL invite came from a Facebook friend with http://Stalq.me/useridentity and clicking it asked me immediately to launch iTunes and install the application.  So the hunt was on.  many of you know I also run the site SocialStalking, so I took particular interest in this.

The application relies on you being connected to the person via Facebook and will even attempt to gather their location without them loading the app or having an iPhone.  It pulls recent postings, notes, pictures and whatever else it can on the person to help guess or establish their location.  If they have the application on their iPhone, it runs utilizing email services.

What transpires, is that the iPhone will automatically check for email about every fifteen (15) minutes or so.  When this happens, the Stalqer application takes the email connection it makes and attempts to locate where you are when connecting based on GPS, cell tower or wifi connectivity.

From there you are able to see where others are on a map and even some augmented reality.  While they have privacy controls that allow you to protect who sees your location and to what level, the unsuspecting person would not have any idea it was there.  Quite the spy tool for someone stalking someone that had access to their iPhone/iTunes to load the application.

Compliments of TechCrunch

This is different from all other location based services and games, such as Brightkite/FourSquare/Loopt and others in that those requir you to launch into the application and check yourself in.  Stalqer is a means to have a built in task (email) show where you are every 15 minutes down to a very pinpointed level.

The social graph of your friends is the deciding factor of who sees the data itself.  If the person is not on your Facebook friend list, they cannot see the application data.

However the remainder stands true also.  If they are on your friend list, have had access to your iPhone and are now in some flux level of friendship, or a bit nuts, I would make sure you are aware what mail services are running and what applications have been installed.

While location services are fast becoming the hot topic of 2010, from a strong appearance in 2009, it can be turned quickly against someone as well in forms of advertising and real life stalkers.

This episode is brought to you by Poken, get yours today

TheSocialNetworker is a Spiked Studio Production