Archive for the ‘Privacy’ Category

The Economist has a special report on social networking titled Privacy 2.0. The article explores the use of privacy controls within today’s hottest social networks.

“If there is one thing that could halt the ascent of social networks, it is the vexed question of privacy. This is controversial because it goes right to the heart of the social-networking business model. In order to attract users, sites need to offer ways for members to restrict the information about themselves that gets shared with a wider public. Without effective controls people would be reluctant to sign up. But if a site allows members to keep too much of their information private, there will be less traffic that can be turned into profit through advertising and various other means, so the network’s business will suffer.”

Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb explains the 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now. The article outlines the ramifications of the Facebook privacy changes which took place in December, and what individuals will want to be aware of as far as their personal privacy settings. These are the three areas the post discusses:

1. Who Can See The Things You Share (Status Updates, Photo, Videos, etc.)
2. Who Can See Your Personal Info
3. What Google Can See - Keep Your Data Off the Search Engines

Mahendra Palsule at MakeUseOf posts about 10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy. This excellent guide to protecting your privacy is a must-read for any member of the social network. Here are the top five recommendations:

• Organize Friends in Lists
• Customize Profile Privacy
• Set Facebook Privacy Level of Photo Albums
• Restrict Search Visibility
• Control Automatic Wall Posts and News Feed Updates

Ben Parr at Mashable writes A Complete Guide to Facebook’s New Privacy Features. The article discusses public options for profiles and status updates, the rollout of Facebook’s new realtime search functionality and what to expect next.

Peter Bromberg at Library Garden discusses privacy issues in light of the recent Facebook TOS controversy in What Libraries Can Learn from Facebook.

“We know all this, and we personally experience the benefits, but librarians still seem generally loathe to let our customers share their personal information in exchange for anything. We don’t just protect customer privacy, we paternalistically protect it from the customers themselves, rendering them childlike. Our privacy philosophy often reduces down to, “We know better”, or “You can’t be trusted with that–you’ll hurt yourself.”"

In response to user outcry regarding their revised Terms of Service, Facebook yielded last night to the wisdom of their members. According to a post by Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook blog, the social network has reverted back to their previous TOS while they consider new language for the next version. And to develop the new Terms, they are asking users for input through the Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities group, which already has over 34,000 members.

Facebook revised its Terms of Service earlier this month, causing much uproar among users including blacked-out avatars and a Fade to Blank protest group. The crux of the issue is that the new TOS states that all of the content uploaded to the social network can be used, published, licensed, sublicensed, etc. in perpetuity by Facebook…even if the member quits the network. Here is an excerpt:

“You are solely responsible for the User Content that you Post on or through the Facebook Service. You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof. You represent and warrant that you have all rights and permissions to grant the foregoing licenses.”

To find out more about what’s being said, check out these sources:
NYT: Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information

Mashable: Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service

Chris Brogan: Wake Up to How You Share on the Web

Mashable: Facebook: All Your Stuff is Ours, Even if You Quit

Facebook blog: On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information

Fade to Blank Facebook TOS Protest Group

#fadetoblank to discuss protest on Twitter

Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook creates an effective how-to guide for protecting your privacy on the social networking giant in 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know. Readers will learn how to take the following steps in order to control access to their information:

1. Use Your Friend Lists
2. Remove Yourself From Facebook Search Results
3. Remove Yourself From Google
4. Avoid the Infamous Photo/Video Tag Mistake
5. Protect Your Albums
6. Prevent Stories From Showing Up in Your Friends’ News Feeds
7. Protect Against Published Application Stories
8. Make Your Contact Information Private
9. Avoid Embarrassing Wall Posts
10. Keep Your Friendships Private

Web Worker Daily comes up with 10 Firefox extensions to enhance your browsing privacy by choosing to control your cookies, surf through a proxy server, and other techniques. Here are their recommendations:

1. Cookie Monster
2. Cookie Whitelist
3. CookieSafe Lite
4. FoxyProxy
5. PhProxy
6. Tor-Proxy.NET Toolbar
7. TorButton
8. SquiggleSR
9. RefControl
10. BetterPrivacy

You may also want to check out Lifehacker’s Top 10 Firefox 3 Features.

There have been quite a few articles, reports, and blog posts about the subject of online privacy recently, many of which focus specifically on Facebook and social networks, others on the Web as a whole. Here are several of the latest writings on the topic:

Facebook and the price of user privacy
ZDNet

Mixed signals on privacy concerns: Internet users say they want to protect personal data, then share it with total strangers.
The Mercury News

Privacy Implications of Fast, Mobile Internet Access
Pew Internet & American Life Report

Clive Thompson on the Age of Microcelebrity: Why Everyone’s a Little Brad Pitt
Wired

The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
Daniel J. Solove: Yale University Press (2007) (Full Text Available here)

Your Guide to Online Privacy
MediaShift

Does Privacy Matter to Most Facebook Users? Let’s look at some data
comScore

Should We Assume There Is No Privacy Online? Have Widgets Killed Privacy?
CenterNetworks

At a time when privacy concerns and online identity management are at the forefront of people’s minds, Dennis O’Reilly of the Worker’s Edge C|net blog tells us of his own online privacy rules:

1. Paranoia pays
2. Don’t use Internet Explorer
3. Use a temporary credit-card number
4. Use an anonymizer
5. Don’t use Google

A new report is available from the Pew Internet and American Life Project titled Digital Footprints: Online identity management and search in the age of transparency. The report reveals some interesting statistics:

• 47% of Internet users have searched for information about themselves online.
• 60% of Internet users are not concerned about how much information is available about them on the Web.
• 61% of Internet users do not feel the need to limit the amount of information about themselves online.