THE ONLINE WORLD OF CNN

An exploration of CNNs Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

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Imarcade.com

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About CNN..

CNN is one of the worlds largest news organisations, and probably the largest.

CNNs online presence includes its website, smartphone app and social media presence

Accessing any of these services “you agree to comply with all of the terms and conditions”

The End of Privacy?

In the Internet age “everyday convenience, efficiency and security depends upon surveillance” Lyon, 2002

The Inevitability of Surveillance

A look at CNNs Terms of Use and Privacy Statement is useful in exploring the inevitability of surveillance in the Internet age and how web services in general retain our data.

Internet Politics and Power As a news site, CNN has published thousands of

articles related to

Moral Censorship

Surveillance

Privacy

Ownership

So what is CNNs Policy on each of these important Issues?

StKildaMarina.com.au

Moral Censorship

By contributing to CNN you automatically agree not to upload, post or otherwise transmit:

Content that violates the rights of others Content that is offensive to the online

community Material that contains and advocates

pornography Content that violates any law

(From CNN Service Agreement Section 2b)

Surveillance

“CNN shall have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor User Content posted or uploaded to CNN.com to determine compliance with these Terms of Service and any operating rules established by CNN and to satisfy any law, regulation or authorized government request.” (From CNN Service Agreement Section 2c)

Privacy

“We…may collect various types of non-personally identifiable information when you visit any of our sites.” (From CNN Privacy Statement)

For example – IP Address, Browser, Web pages visited before and after CNN.COM

What about Social Networks?

“you may allow us to have access to certain information from your social media profile (e.g., name, e-mail address, photo, gender, birthday, location, user files like photos and videos, your list of friends, people you follow and/or who follow you, the posts or the ‘likes’ you make, etc.)” (From CNN Privacy Statement)

So what does CNN do with this information?

As mentioned, CNN would need to comply with any “authorised government request”, but mainly your data is retained for advertising:

“We use this information to facilitate participation in these online forums and communities and, from time to time, to offer you products, programs, services or customized experiences.”

“Our goal at the Turner Network is to provide you with ads that are relevant to you.” (From CNN Privacy Statement)

You can actually opt out of some advertising if you wish..

Ownership

“By submitting User Content to CNN.com, you automatically grant …the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, publish, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, translate, create derivative works from, incorporate into other works, distribute, sub-license and otherwise exploit such User Content” ( From CNN Service Agreement - Part 2(d))

Some other interesting points

As with most other online services, CNN uses “cookies” to track your usage data

You must be over the age of 13 to submit content

“CNN may terminate or suspend these Terms of Service at any time without notice to You”. (From CNN Service Agreement Section 8)

CNN is a participant in the Digital media industries self regulatory program – which aims to “provide consumers with the ability to exercise choice” with regards to online advertising.

The following statement summarizes who really has control…

“we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this privacy statement.” (From CNN Privacy statement)

References

Branson Powers. (2011). Twitter-cnn [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.bransonpowers.com/?p=478

Digital Advertising Alliance. (2010). The Digital Advertising Alliance's (DAA) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioural Advertising. Retrieved from http://www.aboutads.info/

Google Play. (2014). CNN application logo [Image]. Retrieved from https://play.google.com/store/search?q=cnn&hl=en

Imarcade. (2014). CNN.com logo [Image]. Retrieved from http://imgarcade.com/1/cnn.com-logo/

Lyon, D. (2002) Everyday Surveillance: Personal Data and Social Classification, Information, Communication, and Society, 5(1). Retrieved from http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/cyberspace/lyon_ics.pdf

References

St Kilda Marina. (2014). Surveillance-security-camera2 [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.stkildamarina.net.au/2011/08/31/security-camera/

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (2013). CNN Privacy Statement. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/privacy.html

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (2019). CNN Service Agreement. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/interactive_legal.html

Webdig. (2011). Fb-cnn [Image]. Retrieved from http://webdig.com.br/5910/facebook-altera-barra-chat-prepara-editions/

Zawya. (2014). CNN named undisputed #1 international new brand [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.zawya.com/story/CNN_named_undisputed_1_international_news_brand-ZAWYA20141014091828/