Posts Tagged privacy
Facebook’s Latest Privacy Blunder
Posted by Damon in Community, Social Media on October 18, 2010
It seems like every time we turn around, we hear about another hole in Facebook’s security that is potentially threatening to your privacy. Today we learned about a new privacy concern that can allow certain people to gain access to your User ID. Who has access and what does it mean for your overall profile privacy? Read below to get the scoop.
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Facebook Places: Another Invasion of Privacy
Posted by Stephanie in Social Media on August 19, 2010
Facebook unveiled the new Places feature late yesterday and once again there is criticism for their lack of concern for users’ privacy. While the privacy controls for the new geolocating feature, which is only currently available in certain areas of the US, are not as dicey as the spring privacy overhaul, there are some features that don’t bode well for the social network.
Users can check-in to local establishments using their smart phones (currently the iPhone is the only device compatible with Places) to show others where they are, to see where friends in the area have recently checked-in and to see who was last at their current location. It seems Facebook attempted to learn from their privacy mistakes by setting the check-in default visibility to “Friends Only” so your current location isn’t broadcast over all of Facebook—unless of course you’ve set your master privacy control to “Everyone.”
On the surface it seems Facebook Places operates just like any other check-in application like Foursquare or Gowalla. But what sets it apart, for better or worse, is the ability to tag others. One person checking in to a local restaurant can tag all of the members of his group. The fact that someone else can broadcast where you are without your knowledge or consent doesn’t sit well with the ACLU. Furthermore, they find fault with the privacy controls stating “you are only given a ‘not now’ option (aka ask me again later). ‘No’ isn’t one of the easy options.”
Facebook Makes an Attempt to Save Face
Posted by Stephanie in Business Intelligence on May 26, 2010
Facebook has been a hot topic for the last few months and their actions have sparked a lot of debate. Since their f8 conference and subsequent announcements, there have been a number of changes to the social networking site in an effort to “make the world more open and connected.” Unfortunately many Facebook users have found fault in these changes and how they were implemented.
Privacy
Privacy has been at the heart of the concern surrounding Facebook since the very beginning. Over the years, Facebook has updated its privacy policy multiple times. However, these routine updates are not the issue. The complexity and length of the updates are what concern most users. Facebook’s newest privacy policy is now longer than the U.S. constitution. Someone wanting to change his privacy settings now has to navigate through 50 different settings with over 170 different privacy options. Their privacy policy has become a convoluted mess that many users are no longer trying to keep up and even a Facebook board member couldn’t manage his own profile page when his account was hacked. We’re all stuck trying to figure out the latest and greatest changes to their privacy policy and in the mean time, a lot of us are at risk of oversharing.
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