Facebook’s F8 conference took place yesterday and some major new features were announced. A lot of these concepts have more to do with what content publishers can do behind the scenes with Facebook’s APIs and less to do with what the average Facebook user will notice. The expansion Facebook is attempting by essentially attributing a social ideology to any site that wants to incorporate it’s features is a topic for another day. What I want to touch on right now is privacy.
Just a day after Facebook’s announcements the status updates are already rolling in, allegedly attempting to warn other users that their privacy is in danger and explaining how to adjust their privacy settings to prevent their details being exposed and then asking people to repost.
Here’s the problem people. Yes, Facebook’s privacy policies are full of holes. Yes, it appears that with every new reiteration of the site users have less and less control over what information they share and who it’s shared with. But this is the internet and you’re kidding yourselves if you think that any information you enter online is really safe.
The only sure way to prevent your information from being public is to not volunteer that information in the first place.
What people should be aware of when they log in to any website is that information about you is being tracked. Does this mean you shouldn’t participate in social networking? That’s up to the individual. Personally I find greater value in using the web than risk.
The constant online tracking that happens when you visit a website is more or less automated. No one’s sitting behind a control desk. Take Facebook for example — when you created your profile you entered several interests. One of the ways Facebook makes a profit (READ: The reason you can ignore all those threats about Facebook ever becoming a pay site…) is by serving you ads. The companies that purchase advertising space on Facebook are aiming to serve someone advertising that the user will actually click on. Facebook can facilitate this and make more in advertising because they harvest the data you entered pertaining to your interests and serve you ads based on those indications. So is your data being sold to advertisers? More or less, yes. And you probably gave Facebook permission to do so when you signed up and agreed to their terms of service.
I’m not writing this to make Facebook seem like a scary place to enter your information. I’m just trying to make a point that your information is probably out there, that there’s no such thing as privacy when it comes to the internet, and to be aware of what you put online. These are common sense issues that everyone should consider.
If you’re interested in geeking out a bit more on what’s going on with Facebook and how they’re the most intriguing and possibly intimidating force in the web today, I urge you to check out Robert Scoble’s thoughts at http://scobleizer.com.