Facebook and The End Of Privacy

written by mohdazhar.

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Even free has its price. Ironic it may seem but this is the reality of today’s info-centric society. We have lost almost all of our coyness, and replaced it with a newfound openness online. This habit slowly turns us into social media addicts. We get too comfortable with telling our Facebook friends what we are doing, that we tend to overlook the (intangible) price that comes with it.

Facebook, and its targeted advertising

Like any other social networks out there, Facebook too is a capitalist company. Making profits is certainly one of their main objectives. Facebook can never achieve that if it serves its community for free. And so, it makes use of its largest asset – user information. We share almost everything about ourselves online such as on what we like and where we live. Facebook then parlays all these into its lucrative targeted marketing.

For instance, a car repair company in Arizona would have their ads published on an Arizona resident who constantly post updates on his car. The chances of him patronizing the repair company are higher as the ads are more relevant. With targeted marketing, the repair company can receive more clients. In return, it may buy more advertisements. It’s a win-win situation that benefits both the advertiser and Facebook.

Nonetheless, does the resident have a choice to opt out of the targeted advertising? Does he even have the power to restrict personal information from being collected by Facebook? No, and no. And this is just the beginning of the death of privacy.

Joanna defines privacy as “an individual’s right to control the use and disclose of his or her own personal information.” (37) With Facebook, you can’t control anything that has got to do with you. As shown in the example above, users can’t even manage the advertisements that appear on their Facebook home page. It is evident that the information you share in Facebook is not only private to you and your friends, but also to the engineers in Palo Alto.

Facebook extending its wings

Facebook isn’t stopping there. It needs more than just information shared and exchanged inside its free platform. Thus, it developed an ingenious plan to turn its iconic ‘Like’ and comment plug-in ubiquitous. Now, more and more websites are using this free plug-ins to increase traffic.

Popular technology blog, TechCrunch, now only allows Facebook comments below its articles. Yahoo! just released an app which automatically publishes the articles that you read in your Facebook profile. And most alarmingly, SPOTIFY, a social platform that allows its users to share music with their friends, now only accepts new users who sign up via their Facebook accounts!

Before you begin celebrating this new age of web inter-connectedness, I have to warn about the danger of these Facebook extensions (pardon me for being a ‘party pooper’).

Think about this: for instance, a user needs to sign in via Facebook to comment on an article in Yahoo!. Once done, the comment will automatically be published on his wall too. Friends may notice and read it. The cycle continues as the user and his friends begin to comment on more articles. I like to classify this as “auto-recommendation”. Nothing wrong here you may think, but dig deeper and you will realize that Facebook now knows more about you.

In other words, Facebook is stalking you.

My Personal Experience

Choosing a stand in this privacy issue is difficult. I can relate to it since I’m both a business and normal user in Facebook. I’ve set up a fan page for my online shop ‘Bubbletronics’ to better market my products. I know and understand the importance of user information and targeted marketing. It saves costs and allows me to reach out to my audience more effectively.

Through my Facebook page, I can even send messages to my fans. Although they have privatized their photos and general information, most fail to do the same for their messaging and friends list settings.

Why you may ask?

In its response to recommendations made by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook states that it will give more control and transparency to its users. Now virtually everything in Facebook can be tweaked according to one’s own privacy settings. Seems like a noble idea right? But there’s a problem: now any information you share is set to public by default. One can wonder how confusing and complicated it will be. And I believe this newfound openness has caused a lapse in privacy control for users (as proven by my fans).

Although I find user information crucial to my business, as a lifestyle Facebook user myself, I have my concerns. It is such an eye sore to be receiving tons of spam messages from retail companies. It is scary to think that Facebook is stalking my every move.

The Solution

I believe there should be an option in Facebook that allows users to opt out of targeted advertising. This ensures that confidential information is locked out of Facebook and protected under an independent commission. The information may only be retrieved in cases of criminal investigations such as on suspected terrorists. Facebook may introduce a yearly fee to compensate this. I am sure users will not mind, as long as it creates a virtual milieu that respects privacy.

For now, I think it is vital to learn how to tweak one’s own privacy controls to his or her own needs. We have to take our time reading and understanding this privacy controls. For example, the inbox settings can be adjusted to restrict incoming messages to only friends. Once we get the hang of it, only then can we truly enjoy connecting with our friends on Facebook for free.

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Works Cited/References

- Angwin, Julia, et al. “Facebook Retreats On Privacy.” The Wall Street Journal.

11th Nov. 2011. Web. 11th Nov 2011.

- Burnham, Kristin. “Facebook: 5 Privacy Settings You Must Tweak Now.” PC

 World. 24th Apr. 2010. Web. 10th Nov. 2011.

- Jacobsson, Sarah. “Spotify Adds Facebook Requirement, Angering Users.”

 PC World. 27th Sep. 2011. Web. 8th Nov. 2011

- Joanna, Lyn. Legal Issues in Information Security. London: Jones and Barlett

Learning, 2011. Print.

- Winer, Dave. “Facebook Is Scaring Me.” Scripting News. 24th Sep. 2011.

Web. 10th Nov. 2011.

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