A few articles caught my eye this week and they're bringing me back to the concepts of my first blog.
According to [Bloomberg Business Week] article, "Facebook sells your friends," "The company has developed a potentially powerful kind of advertising that's more personal—more "social," in Facebook's parlance—than anything that's come before." As if we need their ads to get MORE personal.
Under the article's section from critics were some pretty good explanations. One of them: "People join Facebook to share their lives with friends, yet the information they reveal 'is being used by strangers for completely unrelated commercial purposes,' says Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year over changes to the social network's privacy policies. 'That is a little unsettling.'"
And while that may not concern you, this might: hackers.
[CIO] talks about the weakness of the security protocol (The standards that specify the format of data as well as the rules to be followed during transmission) for Facebook (also Salesforce.com and others).
Apparently the authorization protocol, OAuth 2.0 is easy to mimic and malicious hackers do. Even one of the creators of OAuth has voiced criticism.
Sounds like a process that could use some reengineering...
Although I am concerned about my privacy, I think some people talk about Facebook out of context. Yes, it would be great to put anything and everything on Facebook and know that my information is safe and sound. At the same time, I recognize that Facebook is a business. They do not charge users anything to use it which means they have to make there money somewhere else. I have heard many people gripe about Facebook with a sense of entitlement. Unfortunately, Facebook owes us nothing. And the reality is, people love. I have found that the people that complain the most are the most avid users of Facebook. They must be doing something right to keep our attention like they do. In the end, it is ultimately the user's responsibility to keep information they don't want getting out off of Facebook. Now before you call me a hypocrite,I admit that I have put up some less than flattering pictures and videos of myself that I wish were kept between me and my friends, but what can I say? I made a mistake. If that information ends up in the wrong hands one day, it will be unfortunate, but it won't be the end of the world. The fact is, we know better, but sometimes we just can't resist sharing.
ReplyDeleteIf a company knows that I'm single and have a November birthday, well that's just trivial I really don't mind. Personally, I think these privacy rights issues on Facebook are being blown out of proportion. One place I do have an issue with, however, is the lack of a disclosure statement. Yes, we can read through their lengthy and boring privacy statement, but who would? I think they should put up a simple 2-4 sentence statement stating how your information will be used and who might have access to it when new users sign up. If you know what you're getting into from the very beginning, what is there to complain about?
It really does make me paranoid that creepsters can get so much information about me, and that I have no way of knowing about it.
ReplyDeleteIt is something that really needs to be looked at more closely. People just hand out their information these days. I'm even a little paranoid about having an iPhone. I guess it's good in many situations that people can locate you so easily, but I think it's too easily exploited.
Since starting grad school here the whole facebook issue has really shocked me now that I actually pay attention to it. I am old, and joined facebook when it first started as a way to remember people’s names that I didn’t remember. Now, however, in learning that I could very well could miss a job opportunity because companies will research me on facebook is startling that any company can have that sort of power into my personal shenanigans, but on second thought it is not so shocking.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is a social network, and we allow ourselves to be used by it. The fact that companies have learned to use facebook as a marketing tool is ingenious. 500 million users is a giant base to have products shown, and the fact that users are being personalized to better understand their wants and needs in a viral world is starling, but also just part of allowing you to be part of such a network. I certainly don’t want some creepy weirdo profiling me by way of my facebook, but if a company is doing it to better personalize what I might find interesting, then so be it, that’s just one of the consequences of using the network. Everyone wants to make their money, and these profiles are allowing companies to market to a HUGE group, so I say power to them.