I think Facebook is doing a good
job of making information available about how they collect and use information
about their users within their privacy policy page. When we agree to use a
service like Facebook we agree to whatever terms they have set up and we
maintain that agreement by continuing use of the service. Facebook isn't
holding any secrets about the fact that they are compiling huge amounts of
information for each and every one of its users and selling it to – well, they don’t
tell you who exactly they’re selling it to, but more than likely it’s: product development,
advertising, lending institutions, etc. Facebook is collecting data about
what its users are doing when we're not even actively using the Facebook
website. They’re logging information the websites we use, the people we
associate with, where we get our news, our political interests, the things we
like to buy, etc.
I think it kinda sucks that
companies are collecting information about my comments/photos/browsing/buying
habits because I value privacy and I wonder if my browsing habits could somehow
have a negative effect on me. On the bright side, if whoever is reading the
information they've been logging about me is actually paying attention, they
might learn that I'm 100% resistant to advertising and might just give up on me
completely. Data-mining individual information isn't really a new thing, but is
definitely cropping up in the news more often now - probably because the ever
increasing popularity of social media sites in conjunction with the technology
to more effectively build profiles for everyone using the Internet.
It’s seems pretty obvious to me
that Facebook, like Google/Google+/Youtube/Gmail and their new privacy policy, is
making their new policies really obvious to their users because they would like
to avoid any potential backlash. If consumers suddenly became aware of what
these companies are doing in regards to collecting and selling our info they might
freak out. If, on the other hand, social media sites are open about what they
are doing they can basically just tell us that the “new” privacy settings are
really just there to improve the service and to improve our user experience
within consumer culture.
*Edit
After reading the additional articles I'm really starting to get the bigger picture of how deep the issue of privacy really is. We can start by thinking about privacy on a "ground level" where we have utilities on sites like Facebook that allow us to limit the amount of information that we share with other Facebook users (ie: public versus private accounts, comments that only some users can see, etc.). Next we consider privacy on the level of what we think companies like Google and Facebook know about us (interests, online shopping habits, gender, religion, household income).
Most Facebook users would probably agree that we have a fair amount of control over what we want other users to see, but it's still really difficult to determine what our "behind the scenes" online profile looks like. Most of us would like to know how much an advertising firm knows about us. We'd also like to know how much information can be hacked from these profiles by predators or scam artists. One of the articles mentioned the Obama administration making efforts to regulate the amount and types of information that companies like Google should be allowed to document. I feel like this is a necessary step because Internet users seem to be increasingly vulnerable in terms of real privacy.
*Edit
After reading the additional articles I'm really starting to get the bigger picture of how deep the issue of privacy really is. We can start by thinking about privacy on a "ground level" where we have utilities on sites like Facebook that allow us to limit the amount of information that we share with other Facebook users (ie: public versus private accounts, comments that only some users can see, etc.). Next we consider privacy on the level of what we think companies like Google and Facebook know about us (interests, online shopping habits, gender, religion, household income).
Most Facebook users would probably agree that we have a fair amount of control over what we want other users to see, but it's still really difficult to determine what our "behind the scenes" online profile looks like. Most of us would like to know how much an advertising firm knows about us. We'd also like to know how much information can be hacked from these profiles by predators or scam artists. One of the articles mentioned the Obama administration making efforts to regulate the amount and types of information that companies like Google should be allowed to document. I feel like this is a necessary step because Internet users seem to be increasingly vulnerable in terms of real privacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment