14 years
More privacy settings modified today:
http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/connect.php
Microsoft Docs.com, Pandora and Yelp will use your Facebook data when you visit those sites unless you opt out.
More Facebook Privacy Issues
Internet Marketing
Facebook Further Reduces Your Control Over Personal Information
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information
For anyone who is interested, Facebook just quietly made a lot of profile information public. Basically, it appears that if you list your interests on your profile, you may automatically be added to public community pages on those topics. The only way to keep that information private is to delete it from your profile. Also check your privacy settings page because some of the options may have also changed...
I wonder how many unsuspecting people will lose employment over the gradual loss of Facebook privacy without even realizing that their crazy personal info is out there in the search engines...
Today, Facebook removed its users' ability to control who can see their own interests and personal information. Certain parts of users' profiles, "including your current city, hometown, education and work, and likes and interests" will now be transformed into "connections," meaning that they will be shared publicly. If you don't want these parts of your profile to be made public, your only option is to delete them.
The example Facebook uses in its announcement is a page for "Cooking." Previously, you could list "cooking" as an activity you liked on your profile, but your name would not be added to any formal "Cooking" page. (Under the old system, you could become a "fan" of cooking if you wanted). But now, the new Cooking page will publicly display all of the millions of people who list cooking as an activity.
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14 years
PC World has a guide called Facebook: 5 Privacy Settings You Must Tweak Now that explains the settings in detail:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/194886/facebook_5_privacy_settings_you_must_tweak_now.html
I also keep everything set to "friends only"... if not, other companies can scrape the data from the webpages and pull it into marketing databases. (Many can still do it if you set to "friends only", but not by scraping the page.)
14 years
Another interesting article:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/194818/why_i_like_really_dislike_facebooks_like_button.html
For example, I created a new Pandora station based on the music of Outkast. Pandora helpfully informed me that one of my Facebook contacts, All About Windows blogger Mary Jo Foley, also was a fan of Outkast. (Gee Mary Jo, I never knew you rolled like that.) I've spoken to Mary Jo once or twice in my life on the phone, but I'd be surprised if she could pick me out of a police lineup, even with that tilty sepia-toned portrait at the top of my ITworld page. Yet I now know she gets down to Andre 3000, even if I'm not sure I really wanted to.
...Make no mistake, this is a power grab. Facebook is making a play to become the single-sign-on and social-sharing engine for every major site on the Net. Call it the FaceWeb.
What I keep thinking is that corporations spend tens of millions of dollars trying to figure out what consumers like. Facebook is getting this information for free. What will it do with this data, down the road when everyone is used to reflexively hitting Like? If you believe they aren't thinking about the buckets of money they can make from this in years to come, you are living in a dream world, my friend.
Of course this is no vast conspiracy to steal your data. You can opt out, though Facebook has yet to unveil granular controls that let you choose which "Likes" to share and which to keep to yourself. But you know most people will accept the default settings without thinking twice. (My advice? Think twice.)
Definitely a power grab. Facebook is going to change the landscape of the Internet. With the data that they have about which webpages people like and click on, they could conceivably even develop a search engine with highly-personalized results. (Every external link clicked on through Facebook is redirected through their analytics.)
14 years
Facebook is taking a beating over the privacy issue.
Here's a new site that shows examples of information people are posting on Facebook that they probably think is still private:
http://youropenbook.org/
(YourOpenBook.org has already passed 600,000 visitors in one day after just being online for a week)
Example of how the new privacy settings automatically reveal information that was probably private by default when the person signed up for Facebook:
More on Business Insider:
According to SAI sources, the following exchange is between a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg [Facebook CEO] and a friend shortly after Mark launched The Facebook in his dorm room:
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask.
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don’t know why.
Zuck: They “trust me”
Zuck: Dumb f*cks.
Someone has already started "Quit Facebook Day" (May 31st) and a group of students who are making a Facebook alternative already received over $40,000 in funding...
I don't think Facebook is going to disappear, but it may eventually go the way of MySpace.
In the meantime I think it's a good idea to set all Facebook profile settings to "maximum privacy" (friends only) and not to list your interests or personal information on your profile... that way most of your personal information at least can't be harvested by third parties and permanently end up in marketing databases or on Open Book...
14 years
Personally I don't use facebook, mainly because of these issues, but also because reading the average person's posts saps the will to live. Obviously whatever method you choose to share information entails some loss of privacy. At least if you use a personal blog you have a modicum of control over what is out there. Facebook have always had no regard for user's privacy. Perhaps this is due to a philosophical viewpoint, like the google buzz fiasco. Or more likely as they attempt to monetise their huge database they are finding the most attractive invformatioin to other companies is precisely the information users might want to keep private.
I understand why kids use it and share everything, as they don't think about the consequences, but if you're an adult who has any concerns about your privacy and how your personal data is used I'd steer clear of facebook.
14 years
New Facebook tool, called "Evil," exposes Facebook users' phone numbers:
"Evil," a new tool created by Tom Scott, is leveraging Facebook's Graph API to expose Facebook users' phone numbers.
Unlike the glitch that revealed users' private chats, or the snafu that spilled personal email addresses, Evil is not a bug exploiting a Facebook security weakness.
Rather, it's an app that searches Facebook groups created by people who've lost their phones hoping to get friends' numbers, then collects and displays the publicly-shared phone numbers.
Like PleaseRobMe.com, Evil calls attention to the kind of personal information users are sharing online, often without realizing how widely it can spread.
14 years
Here's another leak of Facebook data:
Details of 100 million Facebook users published online
Users' personal information cannot now be made private, security consultant says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38463013/ns/technology_and_science-security/
It's a good reason to keep your Facebook privacy settings set to maximum...
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