Slashdot Mirror
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."
Actually, there is another category: the uninformed. A lot of people really do not keep up with the latest decisions Facebook is making with regard to personal privacy, or are even aware that Facebook can, at any time, reveal their data. I am referring, of course, to the same sort of people who are not sure what a web browser is or which browser they are using -- which appears to be the overwhelming majority.
Palm trees and 8
Uncheck any Page you don't want to link to. Linking to education and work Pages may also create additional Pages, such as for your major or job title. If you don't link to any Pages, these sections on your profile will be empty. By linking your profile to Pages, you will be making these connections public. [emphasis mine]
You are about to remove this information
If you don't link to any Pages, the following sections on your profile will be empty:
So your options are all or nothing.
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...
You still use Facebook? Call me a troll, but think. Are you being intelligent if you still use Facebook after all this?
After my last Slashdot comment, I deleted my profile. One of the sub-comments explains how to delete it instead of just disabling it.
Banu
I used to think like that, but the worst thing about facebook privacy is not what you disclose about yourself (which after all is what you choose to disclose and nothing more), but what others publish about you. Here is some news for you: even if you don't have an account, you are probably already on facebook. Unless you live in a cave or avoid social life at all costs, chances are someone already uploaded a picture with you. It's preferable to have an account so you'll usually (though not always...) get to see those photos, comment on them, etc. That's the only reason why I signed up in the first place.
The "real danger" isn't youthful indiscretion. It's profiling in a giant model by Government AND commercial interests in ways that will forever affect your ability to get a job, find insurance or even your ability to freely travel.
How do you build a panopticon, a prison for a society in which real power lies outside of government, in the hands of private commercial and financial interests? Honeypots. Google and Facebook and whatnot. Everyone is so anti-Government, like the stupid Reaganites. That's like being against a small-town cop. He's got the gun, alright - but he works for the man in the big house, at the edge of town. Hired. The enemy isn't Barney Fife - It's Old Man Potter.
How does this relate to Facebook?
You present a real, but minor threat, versus the real evil Facebook represent - along with the darkest nightmare of Google.
Remember, Watson, at IBM supplied tabulation equipment for improving the German Census in the 1930's. Technology was welcomed, and was going to modernize, to improve every German life. Except for a minority or two, of 11 million...
Cypher: "All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead."
Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past year and is on the hunt for a second senior lobbyist to add to its office of four. Disclosures released a few days ago show that, on top of lobbying the usual suspects Internet companies reach out to like the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. senators and representatives, the fast-growing social network has also been busy deepening ties to government intelligence and homeland security agencies. ...
What's interesting about Facebook's lobbying in D.C. is what it spends money on despite its small size. It was the only consumer Internet company out of Google, Amazon, eBay, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple to reach out to intelligence agencies last year, according to lobbying disclosure forms. It has lobbied the Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- an umbrella office founded in the wake of Sept. 11 that synthesizes intelligence from 17 agencies including the CIA and advises the President -- for the last three quarters on privacy and federal cyber-security policy. It has reached out to the Defense Intelligence Agency too.
Well, Facebook has always been an "op" http://cryptogon.com/?p=13749
Now, combine those observations with the next two pieces of information:
Virginia Tech Is Building an Artificial America in a Supercomputer
As many as 163 variables, mostly drawn from the U.S. Census, come into play for each synthetic American. Called EpiSimdemics, the model almost perfectly matches the demographic attributes of groups with at least 1500 people, according to Keith Bisset, a senior research associate who works on the simulation's software. The software generates fake people to populate real communities and assigns each person characteristics such as age, education level, and occupation to mirror local statistics derived from the most recent national census. In accordance with the data, some individuals are clustered into families, while others live alone.
Every synthetic household is assigned a real street address, based on land-use information from Navteq, a digital-mapping company. Using data from a business directory, each employed individual is matched to a specific job within a reasonable commute from the person's home. Similarly, actual schools, supermarkets, and shopping centers identified through Navteq's database are also linked to households based on their proximity to the home. When an artificial American goes grocery shopping, the simulation algorithm assigns probabilities that
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
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.