sickfacebook.com » privacy

Fundamental issues of privacy forcing people to opt out from Facebook

AZ — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:58:33 +0000

Almost a year ago, I created a Facebook profile and began greedily gathering of friends strokes like poppies in Oz Dorothy meeting, starting from the flowerbeds different life. But now, what I liked about Facebook is also what I’m starting to hate about it.

It used to be fun to accumulate a large amount of contacts, to be back in touch with old friends, see the degrees of separation between this person and that one. I love that I have all my friends and contacts in one lifetime, without limitation, connected digital Rolodex. But increasingly, it feels like too much work.

Facebook, if you have not taken a turn not, is an online network of some 62 million active users. It connects us with old and new friends as well as those who work, go to school, share interests and live nearby.

Incredibly, for example, I met a guy I met in high school. He is a man, and lives across the country – and although we have not spoken for 30 years (actually, I’m not sure you really never spoke in 7th grade, either), however, happens to know a lot of people I’ve come to know. What is strange is that?

Then I met a college friend who moved from Boston to South Dakota, and I “met” their children, too. I forged a couple of really great new friends in Facebook, since I hung out with offline. And on my birthday … so, with all the blessings “Facebook” and greetings rain on me, I never shone with more love.

It’s times like that sometimes pause and think what none of this would be impossible without the great gift that is the digital age, and I say a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the life now and not, for example, when all you had to communicate was a lump of charcoal and a cave.

But there’s a downside to all this glorious connectivity. First, my teenager has a Facebook page, and I’ve met him and his friends a few times. I want the child to privacy (in, you know, the limits), so I always politely turn aside as if I saw him, something like if you accidentally entered him in the bathroom.

I also occasionally ran into an old boyfriend on Facebook. Although it’s been years since I saw (which is definitely good), it seems that we are still in contact with some of the same people. Therefore, small windows that had long ago closed and open pried? briefly closed. I want to know that he and his new girlfriend went to see Cloverfield? No – but there it is. And when you drive by an old love, it’s hard not to gawk.

My friend said Nedra that manages this by maintaining two levels of privacy settings on social networks. “I will only allow access to things like my status updates, personal information, photos, etc. if they really have a preexisting relationship with someone,” says Nedra.

Add to my friend Ryan, “When you change the scale of these difficulties by 400 (or 4,000) of friends, suddenly you have a bit of mess on your hands. And the more people you meet, the harder it gets.”

Danah Boyd, who studies social networks at UC Berkeley, calls this “context management”. In other words, suddenly the work to manage the context of their online profile, “which, curiously, seems to have its own life.

Social networking sites can be just fun and games and connections. But at the same time, make you consider some fundamental issues of privacy, access and personal privacy – or lack thereof. It’s a job to manage the privacy settings and requests for access to their personal and professional life. It’s a job to think about who you see and how they see you and you see … , And often, says Danah, flat-out Unfun ”

It sucks for teens trying to balance mom and friends. It sucks for college students trying to have a social life and not disturb their teachers. It sucks for 20-somethings trying to date and the balance of the presence of his boss.

And increasingly, it sucks for us, too, that are somewhere north of 20-ish.

Facebook could choose to complete, I know many people who have or are thinking about it. But I’m willing to do that, because I’m not willing to have the facility to which social networking virtual Rolodex torn from my hands.

What is dawning on me is a recognition that there is a fine line between what is Facebook – and what’s in-your-face … book.

Facebook permits third parties to access user’s personal data

AZ — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:14:54 +0000

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Members of the adult entertainment industry are locked at the hip with Facebook to communicate and market their businesses.
But accusations that Facebook allows third party access to the wealth of information without user knowledge or consent can only change that.

According to a class action claim in Superior Court in Orange County, Facebook invades the privacy of its customers and the misappropriation of people’s images and personal information for commercial marketing purposes and.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook knows about its users do not want their personal information distributed around the web, however, terms of use, Facebook allows maintaining the data sent by the user long after being removed from the site.
“The data gathered from users of Facebook is the key commercial asset that Facebook uses to market valuation for purposes of internal marketing, and licensing and direct sale of information to third parties,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit was brought by photographer Elisha Melkonian, who says that Facebook allows photos to be downloaded, copied and distributed without his permission, despite numerous attempts to stop him.
In addition, the suit says, Facebook users are “involuntary participant monitoring technologies and Facebook have had their purchase and / or other public activities to other Facebook users without their consent.”
The lawsuit also says that Facebook has already started direct advertisements that include sexual orientation material to users through “social ads” that are matched to the persons nominated as a friend of a user.
“The claim that Facebook will not sell your information is misleading and untrue,” the lawsuit said. “Facebook has misled users with policies involving users are in control of their personal data.”
Facebook wants Melkonian restricted to collect or sell user data and to allow downloading of copyrighted photos without permission. She also seeks damages of $ 750 class for each unauthorized use of names or photos.
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Germans to ues Facebook over Privacy Rights

AZ — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:02:54 +0000

Berlin – Consumer advocates in Germany said on Tuesday they have begun moves to sue Facebook, accusing the US online community company of trampling on privacy rights.

Haunted by Nazi-era abuses, Germans are sensitive about enterprises storing any information about people.

Cease-and-desist warnings were sent by the national association of citizens’ advice bureaux to MySpace and Xing, as well as to Facebook, requiring them to alter their data rules.

The association said the social networks must ensure that users had the sole power to expose their personal data to examination by third-party search engines or to delete such data.

It charged that the terms of service of some of the social networks forced users to surrender such rights.

“If the social networks don’t sign the cease-and-desist letter, we’ll take them to court,” said Carola Elbrecht, the association’s executive dealing with the topic.

The association has joined with 80 consumer groups in the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) in drafting demands for users to “always remain masters of their data”.

The TACD paper says, “If users cancel their membership, the stored data should be completely deleted. In cases in which the user wants to delete data, the social network operator should not put any obstacles in place.”

Facebook sued over privacy

AZ — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:41:54 +0000

Haunted by Nazi-era abuses, Germans are sensitive about enterprises storing any information about people.

Cease-and-desist warnings were sent by the national association of citizens’ advice bureaux to MySpace and Xing, as well as to Facebook, requiring them to alter their data rules.

The association said the social networks must ensure that users had the sole power to expose their personal data to examination by third-party search engines or to delete such data.

It charged that the terms of service of some of the social networks forced users to surrender such rights.

“If the social networks don’t sign the cease-and-desist letter, we’ll take them to court,” said Carola Elbrecht, the association’s executive dealing with the topic.

The association has joined with 80 consumer groups in the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) in drafting demands for users to “always remain masters of their data”.

10 Facebook Privacy Settings You Should Know

AZ — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:41:15 +0000

Everyday I receive emails from people about how their account was hacked, how a friend tagged them in the photo and they want a way to avoid it, as well as a number of other complications related to their privacy on Facebook.

I figured that many people would benefit from a thorough overview on how to protect your privacy on Facebook. Below is a step by step process for protecting your privacy.

1 – Using Friend List
I can’t tell you how many people are not aware of their friend lists. For those not aware of what friend lists are, Facebook describes them as a feature which allows “you to create private groupings of friends based on your personal preferences. For example, you can create a Friend List for your friends that meet for weekly book club meetings. You can create Friend Lists for all of your organizational needs, allowing you to quickly view friends by type and send messages to your lists. You can configure your friend lists by visiting the http://www.facebook.com/friends/ of your Facebook.

2 – Remove Yourself from Facebook Search
There are numerous reasons that individuals don’t want their information to show up in search results on Facebook, and it’s simple to turn off your public visibility. Here’s how to do it:
1- Visit your search privacy settings page http://www.facebook.com/privacy/?view=search
2- Under “Search Visibility” select “Only Friends” (Remember, doing so will remove you from Facebook search results, so make sure you want to be removed totally. Otherwise, you can select another group, such as “My Networks and Friends” which I believe is the default.)
3- Click “Save Changes”

3 – Remove Yourself From Google Search
Facebook gets A hundred and thousands of traffic from displaying user profiles in search engines. Not all of your profile is displayed though. Currently the information displayed in the search profile is limited to: your profile picture, a list of your friends, a link to add you as a friend, a link to send you a message, and a list of up to approximately 20 fan pages that you are a member of.
By visiting the same search privacy settings page listed in the previous step, you can control the visibility of your public search listing which is visible to Google and other search engines. You can turn off your public search listing by simply unchecking the box next to the phrase “Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing” as pictured in the image below.

4 – Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake
At the least, a tagged photo/video can result in personal embarrassment. So how do you prevent the infamous tagged photo or video from showing up in all of your friends news feeds? It’s pretty simple. First visit your profile privacy page and modify the setting next to “Photos Tagged of You”. Select the option which says “Customize…” and a box like the one pictured below will pop up.

5 – Protect Your Albums
There is a specific Photos Privacy page from which you can manually configure the visibility of each album (as pictured below). This is an extremely useful configuration option and I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. This way you can store your photos indefinitely on Facebook yet ensure that the only people that can view your photos are the ones who you really want to see them.

6 – Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds
There are a number of ways to control how your relationship status is displayed. The first thing that most people should do is uncheck the box next to “Remove Relationship Status” in the News Feed and Wall Privacy page. In the rare instance that a relationship does uncomfortably end, you can avoid making things more uncomfortable by avoiding a friend notification about it.
Second, your relationship status falls within your “Basic Information” section of your profile. You can control who can see your basic information next to the “Basic Information” setting on the Profile Privacy page. Keep in mind that other relevant profile information like your gender, birth date, networks, and other settings are visible within your basic information section.

7 – Protect Against Published Application Stories
This one is a little more tricky to manage but I’ll explain the issue at hand. Frequently when you add an application, a news feed item is immediately published to your profile. One way to get instantly embarrassed is to visit the “Have Sex!” application (found here). This application has no purpose besides telling your friends that you are interested in having sex with them. Without taking any action, the application will post a news feed story to your profile which says the equivalent of “Nick just published to the world that he is having sex!”

8 – Keep Your Contact Information Private
The contact information is my personal email and phone number. It’s a simple thing to set but many people forget to do it. Frequently people we don’t know end up contacting us and we have no idea how they got our contact information. Your contact privacy can be edited right from your profile. If you have chosen to enter this information, you should see a “Contact Information” area under the “Info” tab in your profile. If it displays, you simply click “Edit” and then a box will show up.

9 – Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts
Within your profile page you can control who can view wall postings made by your friends. To do so, click on the “Settings” icon on the wall in your profile page.
In addition to controlling who can view wall postings published by your friends, you also want to control which friends can post on your wall. Not everybody needs to do this, but occasionally you simply want to prevent some people from posting on your page. If you visit the Profile Privacy settings page, there is a section labeled “Wall Posts”.

10 – Keep Your Friendships Private
While it’s fun to show off that you have hundreds or thousands of friends on Facebook, some of your friends don’t want to live public lives. That’s why it’s often a good policy to turn off your friends’ visibility to others. I’ve had a number of individuals visit my profile and then selectively pick off friends that are relevant to them for marketing purposes, or other reasons.
Whatever the reason they are doing it, just know that they are … it’s part of what makes Facebook so addictive: the voyeuristic nature. Also, your friends are frequently visible to the public through search engines and exposing this information can ultimately present a security risk. To modify the visibility of your friends, visit the Profile Privacy page.
Navigate down to the setting which says “Friends” and then modify the setting to whatever is right for you.

50,000 Members Signed Petition Against Facebook Beacon Advertising

AZ — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:55:13 +0000

Facebook has made significant changes to its recently launched Beacon advertising platform after 50,000 Facebook members signed a MoveOn.org petition over a 10-day period, asking the site to respect user privacy.

Beacon sends messages to members friends about what they are purchasing online. If the member booked a trip to Japan on Travelocity.com, for example, friends on Facebook would know it. If the member purchased a ticket to “American Gangster,” that would also be known among friends.

Facebook backpedaled. The social-networking site now says it won’t send messages about members’ Internet activities without getting approval each and every time. Members will opt in to the program.

When Facebook launched the program on November 6, it wasn’t positioned as a Big Brother scenario. The new advertising solution was positioned as an option to share actions on other sites with friends on Facebook.

“Just as Facebook shares your on-site interactions with your friends through News Feed, we now give you an option to let News Feed share your off-site actions with your friends as well,” explained Leah Pearlman, the product manager for Facebook ads, in the company blog.

MoveOn.org launched its petition on November 20, saying Beacon was an invasion of privacy. The petition reads, “Site like Facebook must respect my privacy. They should not tell my friends what I buy on.

Facebook selling your Personal Information to other Corporations [Must See Video]

AZ — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:32:04 +0000

The Video is a very informing video revealing the big brothers stealing your personal information and selling it to other Corporations….Its really a shocking fact….

Facebook Privacy loophole can let everyone see into your Privacy

AZ — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:31:56 +0000

Here’s how it works: When you post pics, only people who are your friends can see them. However, if I am friends with “Jane” and Jane comments on “Sam’s” picture, this comment (and Sam’s picture) get posted for ME to see. And I’ve never met Sam in my life. Not only that, but I can click on the picture and see the whole album of all Sam’s pictures. Just the one album though. So, poor Sam is getting his pictures looked at by every single person who is Jane’s friends. And, the same goes for anyone else who comments on his picture.

Imagine that, all your friends friends can look through your entire album every time that friend comments on a picture. So until Facebook closes this privacy loophole you might want to protect your friends privacy, by not commenting on pictures. Imagine what parents, coworkers, and others think when they see pictures of you that you don’t want them to see!

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