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Facebook Retroactively Makes More User Data Public
mjn writes "In yet another backtrack from their privacy policy, Facebook has decided to retroactively move more information into the public, indexable part of profiles. The new profile parts made public are: a list of things users have become 'fans' of (now renamed to 'likes'), their education and work histories, and what they list under 'interests.' Apparently there is neither any opt-out nor even notice to users, despite the fact that some of this information was entered by users at a time when Facebook's privacy policy explicitly promised that it wouldn't be part of the public profile."
Anyone who ever had even a passing interest in personal data security and privacy has left Facebook months ago (or, like me, never considered it a great idea to put your life online for public review). Everyone left will probably think it's a great feature.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Why be on Facebook at all? They don't run it for warm fuzzy feelings. The bulk of the $$$$ is contained in its user data so they'll tap that well more and more as time goes on, not less.
I doubt 419 scammers also... Employers maybe... Goverment, yes? The fact that I'm on a number of fanlists that would probably have me labled a radical conservative is not something I want available on my facebook page. (Even if people know by my posts and who know me, etc..) So I went into the profile options and figured I'd "customize" it. Well I changed it to "only me" option and logged out,etc. they still show up. So now the goverment can deploy a robot to crawl facebook and build a map of your "like" links and probably come up with a good profile of you opinion/politics.
Is there a paranoid group I can like too?
Where is the outrage?
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
I'm amused by the constant uproars people make every time facebook changes something. what the hell do they think the whole point of facebook is? that they are just providing this service for free? this is a classic case of people wanting their cake and eating it too.
meanwhile, government already has complete access to everyone's communication. you don't hear nearly so much about that anymore. I'm a lot more worried about law enforcement abuse than marketing products I might actually want at some point.
In this case, particular bits of data were disclosed to Facebook with the written understanding that they would remain private. That was according to Facebook's own privacy policy. Later, Facebook reneged on this understanding and unilaterally decided to made them retroactively public. They did this without giving anyone a chance to opt-out and there was no period of notice (between announcing this and actually doing it) to give users a chance to remove or edit that data. This is your classic bait-and-switch. They said one thing, got people to accept what they said on good faith, and then they did another thing.
I understand that Facebook wants to make money. Every for-profit corporation wants to make money. However, that doesn't give them the right to use deception and that's what happened here. Reputable companies manage to make profit without making promises they refuse to keep to their users or customers. What Facebook did is like moving the goalposts or changing the rules while the game is being played. Can you understand now why saying "did you think they were providing you a free service" is a strawman and fails to address the actual issue here?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
What's the big deal? This is all information I would share with a random stranger sitting at a bar in an airport. I do use the strictest 'privacy' settings, but that is just to put a little more control over companies using my information for their monetary gain - not because I'm terrified of people finding out about it (why would I put it online if I were?). I don't join groups or post comments regarding politics or anything else one might consider sensitive, but if used correctly, Facebook can be harmless.
Its possible the retroactive parts of these changes are in breach of UK/EU data protection laws. The issue is that a holder of personal data may only use information for the purposes for which it was provided. If the person supplying the data wished to keep it relatively private and Facebook then later make it public without the informed prior consent of the user then there is a probable breach of the regulations.
Of course Facebook will say that they are not based in the EU but they probably do have servers and interests there and gain revenue from EU based advertisers.
The enemies of freedom in our country use the words "liberal" and "conservative" to lump people who are truly trying to effect positive change together with the various groups of screaming man-children depicted with those monikers on television. So since I believe that government should not interfere in people's lives except when fundamental rights are violated, I get lumped together with the Glenn Beckbeast with the word "conservative." I disagree with him and others like him on many points, mostly that there are no outrageous conspiracies to deny people rights.
Words like liberal and conservative are being twisted to deny people the ability to think rationally. In that sense there is a conspiracy and everyone who uses those words is part of it.
One's friends and the interactions with them is a privacy risk.
So even one posts a very basic user profile, such as the one you suggested, one's privacy is not safe. An interested party could fill in much of the blanks by tracking the interaction with others, including apps.
Even Facebook book users with strict privacy settings are still at risk, if they don't literally screen every "friend" they have to ensure they are legit (ie. not a stranger sneaking in as a "rogue" friend) and that will they respect their privacy, as well as, all "friends of friends" (equals the whole world, practically; six degrees of separation comes to mind, so good luck with that).
Facebook's business growth primarily comes from eroding user privacy to gather ever more specific, *personal data of each individual user* for marketing purposes, as well as, to grow its user base - more user profiles open to the public equates to more user interaction (ie. "friending", messaging, gaming, etc), and hence more traffic.
Ron
Why is this so difficult? Repeat after me "I will not post anything to the Internet that I do not want the whole world to know". And also "I will not trust a third party company to keep my data private ever even if they pinky swear to it". Then if you don't post things you do not want revealed then when the company (facebook in this case) makes the data public or gets hacked then nothing of value will be lost.
I also don't understand people who have facebook pages set all to private. What is the point of that. If you want to send information to a small group of people then set up a mailing list. Why you would use facebook for that purpose is completely beyond me. Instead tap into the fantastic intrinsic value that facebook has in building a brand identity and value for YOUR name. Post things that will make future employers, future lovers and your parents proud. Then you'll have nothing to hide because what you want hidden you never posted in the first place.
Maybe you should retake that class?
One of the defining features of arm-chair socialists is that they think that.
We are the product. We're what Facebook sells to advertisers in order to bring in their business. Facebook needs to offer just enough privacy and control to keep most of us, but not so much as to ruin the value of the product.