facebook privacy Archive

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Facebook announces changes intended to increase user security

By
kduffy
– August 25, 2011Posted in: News

Facebook has occupied a massive presence in the field of social networking since shortly after its initial launch. Even so, the website has been subject to fairly regular questions regarding the security it offers its users. To address these questions, the website is adding increases to user security, according to Reuters.

The news source reports that privacy has always been a challenge to users as well as the website’s designers. As a free service, Facebook can only generate revenue through advertising, which often leads to third-party companies having access to users’ personal information in order to customize their ad experience.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, debuted user-friendly privacy settings in 2010, revising previous design features that made it difficult for some to properly control access to individual pages.

The news source reports that users will now have to approve all photos that they are tagged in, allowing them to avoid being connected to anything they don’t wish to make public. Additionally, privacy can be adjusted whenever any information is shared by a user for any reason.

Facebook made additional headlines on August 24, when it reached two internet milestones – hitting one trillion page views and amassing 870 million individual users, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Facebook Arouses New Concerns with Privacy Breach

By
acoleman
– October 18, 2010Posted in: Facebook


Today marks a whole new set of concerns among Facebook users, as the site has suffered a major breach of personal data. According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Facebook has been inadvertently transmitting private user data to advertisers via third-party applications.

It is a development that raises serious concerns over the long standing question of whether Facebook is capable of protecting the user data of its members.  The WSJ is reporting that some of the most popular Facebook third-party applications, which include Farmville, have been transmitting personal user data to outside companies.

The breach happened through the use of user IDs, which are unique IDs given to every Facebook user which can reveal a users age, residence, and even occupation. These user IDs are made available to any Facebook app once a user connects to it, and a number of third-party apps have reportedly sent these user IDs to some 25 advertising agencies.

Considering that the majority of Facebook’s apps are made by independent software developers, the breach is quite alarming. There were ten total third-party apps named by the WSJ in their report, all of which have over 10 million users connected to them.

The big question everyone is asking is whether Facebook was aware of the breach or not, as it is a serious violation of the site’s privacy policy. Facebook has yet to release an official statement, but we will let you know when it does.

Wall Street Journal

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Facebook and other sites discovered sharing user data with advertisers

By
acoleman
– May 21, 2010Posted in: Internet Trends, News

Keyboward lockAccording to the Wall Street Journal several social media sites, including Facebook and MySpace, have reportedly been sending user data without consent to advertisers. The data allows advertisers to look up the personal information of the users, that can include their name, age, hometown, and more.

The data was sent to several advertisers, which include Google’s DoubleClick and Yahoo’s Right Media. Both have stated that they were unaware of the fact that the data came from social media sites, and haven’t used it.

The list of sites that the Wall Street Journal identified (along with Facebook and MySpace) for sending the personal data to advertisers includes Hi5, Xanga and Digg. Among them Facebook was identified as sending the most personal data to advertisers.

The news couldn’t have come at a worse time for Facebook. The site is currently facing harsh criticism from privacy advocates. Its complicated and less than transparent privacy policy has many concerned.

After questioning from the WSJ, Facebook and MySpace both have rewritten their code for sending user information to advertisers. The damage, however, has already been done, as Facebook’s already tarnished reputation has taken yet another hard hit.

WSJ


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Facebook glitch raises new privacy concerns

By
acoleman
– May 6, 2010Posted in: Internet Trends, News

Facebook founder

Facebook is no stranger to controversial privacy issues. The massive social media site has come under fire of late for its numerous changes to its privacy settings. The latest bit of controversy comes from a recent glitch that the site suffered on Wednesday, and it has raised new concerns among users.

The glitch gave individuals access to private information (like chat logs) from other user accounts. This incident, while relatively brief, has added to the already mounting concern users have with Facebook and its stance on privacy. A short time ago the site established new privacy settings that essentially make user information public, unless removed from the site. It is this decision that first aroused concern among users.

James E. Katz, a professor of communications at Rutgers University stated “Facebook is increasingly finding itself at the center of a tense discussion over privacy and how personal data is used by the Web sites that collect it.”

According to the NY Times there are a fair amount of individuals who don’t even understand Facebook’s privacy settings. A recent consumer report showed that some 23 percent of users on the site either do not understand the privacy settings or do not know they exist. This adds to a much deeper concern that individuals have with Facebook’s vague details concerning its privacy settings.

The question individuals are asking is if the details of Facebook’s privacy settings are vague on purpose? It would make sense considering the stance the site has taken, as well as the fact it encourages users to share and be open. It is this lack of transparency concerning privacy that has users and critics more concerned than the issue of privacy itself.

NY Times

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Facebook releases new privacy settings that don’t seem very private

By
acoleman
– April 20, 2010Posted in: Industry News, Internet Trends, News

Facebook traditional IconAlong with some updates to their network and connections, Facebook also announced new changes to their privacy settings yesterday. The new settings now include a section known as “Friends, Tags and Connections.” This new section will allow you to edit who sees what on your profile; for instance your friend list, tagged photos, and pages you like.

“Within your Privacy Settings under the Account menu, you have a section called “Friends, Tags and Connections.” Adjusting the drop-down menus beside each field let you determine who can see those parts of your profile. These visibility settings are a direct response to your requests to be able to hide more information on your profile. Specifically, the most requested feature a few weeks ago was to enable you to hide your friend list on your profile from your friends. As part of today’s changes, you can do that.”

The interesting thing is the new settings don’t really make your information private. Facebook stated “You can control which friends are able to see connections listed on your profile, but you may still show up on Pages you’re connected to.” Essentially you are only able to hide the information under “Friends, Tags and Connections” on your own profile. The only way to keep that information from showing up on other pages is to “disconnect from them.”

Facebook has gone through a number of changes in terms of privacy, one of which in December stirred up a bit of controversy. A decision to allow user information to be indexed by search engines raised suspicion among the site’s users. The latest settings may be an attempt to get back in the good graces of those particular users.


Facebook Blog


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Facebook founder believes Public is the new “Social Norm”

By
acoleman
– January 11, 2010Posted in: Industry News, Internet Trends

Facebook founderOne of the major hot button issues right now is on-line privacy. Although the debate about whether the Internet should be more open or not has been around for awhile, it has recently taken a new turn. A few of the major leaders in social media and search have expressed a more open stance in Internet privacy and the backlash has been severe.

Facebook recently drew criticism for its decision to request a mandatory update if its 350 million users privacy settings. Under the new settings certain information about users would be made public to the entire Facebook community, and potentially indexed by search engines. In a recent interview, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg commented on the privacy changes for the first time.

In an interview during a livestream with the Crunchies awards, Zuckerberg stated “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

The statement makes Zuckerberg’s intentions for Facebook’s future clear. Although a more open Facebook policy has been met with harsh criticism, it seems the decision was inevitable.


Mashable


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Facebook makes potentially controversial change in privacy settings

By
acoleman
– December 9, 2009Posted in: Industry News, Internet Trends

Facebook WindowIf you have checked your Facebook page today, then you have most likely been prompted to update your privacy settings for your page on the social site. A major overhaul of the Facebook privacy settings were in the works for sometime now, and founder Mark Zuckerberg discussed the changes last week in an open letter.

Although the decision to have all 350 million Facebook users make a mandatory change to their privacy settings is unprecedented, it is not the decision itself that I find potentially controversial. It is the fact that under the new privacy settings a number of personal facts about yourself will be made public, including your name, profile pic, and a number of other things.

Here is what CNET is reporting on it, “Some information–including name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks you belong to, friend lists, and pages you’re a fan of–will be available to everyone. The only way to keep that information from the general public is to not include it as part of your Facebook profile.”

Since Facebook’s birth you have always had the option to keep any and all of this information private if you wished to do so but that luxury is no longer available under the new settings. You do have the ability to keep the outlined information private but you have to remove it from your profile entirely, and who wants to do that?

CNET


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