Dave Allen
Dave Allen. Director, Interactive Strategy

Facebook and your privacy – part 1

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Facebook, Privacy, Time Magazine, NORTH

Some questions to preface this article: Did Facebook just become too big? Does Facebook really wreck your right to privacy? As Facebook approaches its 500 millionth user, how many of those users understand what privacy means? My off-the-cuff answers to my own questions are – the bigger you are, the better the target [see Google's current issues,] and no, I don’t believe Facebook wrecks my privacy, plus I would argue that only a small percentage of users understand, or for that matter care, about privacy nor do they understand the true meaning of privacy in many contexts. I’ll explain my thoughts on the “idea of privacy” as I empty my head on to the page as it were… [actually in part 2 as I need to be more detailed.]

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb posted his thoughts last January, but last week the negative Facebook stories began to spread as invasively as Kudzu. Here’s a video from Tim O’Reilly who sorta kinda sides with Facebook. Nicholas Carr has a go at Zuckerberg over Facebook’s Lock-in and now Time Magazine gives the story the front page. I found all those articles and many more during a very cursory search, it appears that the webs are a-humming over this one.

It feels like there’s a lot of fear out there; fear over an assault on our civil liberties, fear of our privacy being invaded. It’s palpable and yet it’s understandable; when we are reminded every day that we must protect our social security numbers from tricksters and hucksters who’ll steal our “identities,” then yes, we could get a little paranoid. But sharing your information on Facebook is not akin to exposing yourself or your social security number to thieves. Nor is it an outright invasion of one’s privacy. At its worst, it appears that Facebook execs have not been truthful about just how much of your personal data they actually share with marketers and advertisers. They have made some huge PR blunders, not least when CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared that “Privacy is dead,” at the same time Google has blundered too . Yet the process for changing your privacy settings on Facebook is labyrinthian, not to mention that it’s almost impossible to delete your account, so it’s difficult to defend them. [If you are ready to delete your account here's how for reals.]

Let’s put the white noise to one side for a minute and try and put this in perspective by starting with a simple premise. When using a web platform or web site you can give away as much personal information as you like, or as little. It’s your choice. You can also back out and provide no information. It really is up to you. For instance, I can’t remember how many of my female friends I have contacted on Facebook to ask why they would publicize their address and phone number on the platform. Stalkers anyone?

Now think about how many company web sites you have entered personal information in to. And not only personal information such as name, address, phone, D.O.B. but also credit card details – Amazon? Apple iTunes? Google? Your online bank? Mint? – do you use a grocery store discount card? How about a frequent flier plan with an airline?

I ask because all of the above have an awful lot of data about your spending habits and other mercantile activities. They share this rich and juicy data with marketers and advertisers. [Don't kid yourself into thinking that "well they say they won't" is a decent defense.] Then there are applications like Foursquare where we share our personal whereabouts. Once you give up your locational privacy why would you scream at Facebook about privacy? The Please Rob Me web site would be funny, if it wasn’t funny…

It doesn’t stop at Foursquare. What are you doing with that location-aware mobile device in your pocket..? Take a look at the EFF article On Locational Privacy and How to Avoid Losing it Forever – you may be shocked by what you read. Also, the Centre For Democracy & Technology has a good piece on Over Sharing and Location Awareness.

It’s really a matter of personal responsibility and common sense. Facebook executives may, or may not, care about your personal “privacy” but we do know they want to be paid for letting you use the site for free – that’s why one is bombarded with irrelevant advertising every time one visits. The data you provide, that in turn Facebook provides to marketers willing to pay for ads is what keeps the doors open.

Facebook is a business, so you should consider how much information you want to share with any business, not just Facebook.

In part 2 I will share my thoughts on the “idea of privacy” inspired by danah boyd’s keynote speech at this year’s SXSWi conference and Jonathen Frantzen, particularly his book of essays How To Be Alone. Stay tuned.

[Edit] 3 Ways to Keep Facebook Likes More Private via @WebTrends

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Comments

9 Responses to “Facebook and your privacy – part 1”

  1. Joe
    May 24th, 2010 @ 2:13 pm

    Dave, you hit the nail on the head with this statement. “When using a web platform or web site you can give away as much personal information as you like, or as little. It’s your choice. ”

    I cannot believe the amount of whining I hear about privacy these days. If you want privacy, stop providing personal information!

  2. Erik Ratcliffe
    May 24th, 2010 @ 2:24 pm

    I think there’s one facet to this situation that is not being addressed: the conditions under which people decided to share information.

    When I first joined Facebook I was given the option to limit access to my information. I would not have shared some of the information if I knew my control settings would be tossed to the side. I never publish online anything that would severely damage me (even my friends don’t need to know everything). This does not make it right for Facebook to pull my privacy settings out from under me.

    The issue for me isn’t whether or not the information will kill my career or simply piss people off; it’s that I said to not share info outside my friends/contacts, and Facebook said screw you, we’re sharing it anyway. And they didn’t just do this once. They’ve done it a number of times since I joined. How many times/ways do I need to say “no”?

    In my opinion, the ethics of the company are questionable at best, and considering how many times I’ve “fixed” and re-”fixed” my privacy settings with endlessly expanding lists of checkboxes, I don’t trust that my settings will stick any longer than it takes Facebook to figure out how to circumvent them. So, as with other businesses that I consider to be unethical, I have voted with my metaphorical feet. My Facebook account should be officially deleted (not just deactivated) by the end of this week, and I do not plan on returning.

    Sure, they need to earn money. I can’t imagine this level of disregard for customers is necessary. Surely there’s a better way.

  3. Dave Allen
    May 24th, 2010 @ 3:01 pm

    Joe, yes it’s mind-boggling how there’s complaint from, but no responsibility by, the users. Although I do believe the one’s who are shouting the loudest are not your average Facebook user – and that’s the dilemma..how to train Facebook users, millions of them, to protect the data they share..

  4. Dave Allen
    May 24th, 2010 @ 3:03 pm

    Erik,

    I completely agree that Facebook has abused its users and there is no excuse for their behaviour. Yes they need to make money, no they do not need to act unethically. You did the right thing.

  5. Justin Kistner
    May 24th, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

    Facebook is merely the catalyst for a discussion society has needed to have about information exchange since the dawn of the Internet. They are an inevitable conflict that is built right into the business model of paying for a service by allowing them to monetize the data you contribute.

    But, the real mind-bender is that privacy on Facebook isn’t about you controlling the data you publish about yourself, it’s also about controlling the data others publish about you, which isn’t a Facebook problem. For example, I don’t use foursquare because I don’t want to share my real-time location. But, what’s to stop someone from tweeting that I’m at Beer and Blog? So, what can I do to prevent other people from sharing about me? If I can’t do much, then what publishing permissions am I granting from just walking outside?

    The truth is, we don’t understand what it means to be a steward of our own data. We don’t know what data about us is sensitive, who could generate it and under what circumstances; much less whether or not we own it and have control over it’s availability.

    We understand little about privacy because we understand even less about data. Our understanding is about as developed as us understanding a match to be fire, ignorant of it’s power at scale.

    Privacy is a catch-all term that hides the real discussion: who has the right to determine who has access to what. I don’t think society is going to like that answer to that question.

  6. Suzanne Lainson
    May 24th, 2010 @ 9:07 pm

    I don’t use Foursquare because I don’t want to let people know where I am. I don’t accept outside applications on Facebook because I don’t know how the information will be used. I’ve been deleting some information on Facebook because Facebook is linking it in ways I never intended. Under music, I had listed some music and movies I liked. But I intentionally didn’t “fan” some Facebook pages because I wasn’t that interested in being linked to them. But then Facebook did link me to those pages, so I deleted many of them. Now even my friends don’t know as much about my tastes as before.

    Facebook also took pages that I had “fanned” and reorganized them into my music interests. But many of those were just band pages that I “fanned” because some local musicians had asked me to. They weren’t my favorites, so once Facebook decided to move them into my music section, Facebook gave them more prominence than I had intended, so I deleted them. Now I’m not supporting some local bands because I don’t want the world to think they were musical favorites of mine.

    Facebook made some assumptions about me that were incorrect, so I have been deleting information.

    The company keeps changing how it uses my information, so I keep changing my settings and what I will post about myself. As a result, I’m supplying less information about myself to everyone on Facebook, and I anticipate that I continuing to delete stuff.

    As long as I clearly understand how a company is using information about me, I can make a decision. It’s not knowing what Facebook intends that makes we wary.

  7. Roy Christopher
    May 25th, 2010 @ 1:52 pm

    I just keep it like Jay Rosen does his Twitter: “All personal; never private.”

    I don’t know how much I really care about this debate. If someone thinks it’s okay to put their number, address, and current location in easy-to-find-and-conflate places online, that’s their business. I mean, yes, Facebook has made itself a target — and an occasion to talk about these issues — by jerking its users around, but I don’t put anything on there that I don’t want people to know. If you haven’t found out what you want to know about me somewhere else, you’re probably not going to find it on Facebook.

    On the other hand, I hope all of this kicks off a renaissance of personal websites. I’m already consulting a comedian and an emcee on how best to build a presence off the social networks. I’d like to see this trend grow and continue, because, as I posted last year, “Facebook 2009 = AOL 1999.”

  8. Carla Bobka
    May 26th, 2010 @ 7:40 am

    Here’s a truth: we don’t know what we don’t know until we realize we don’t know it.

    Then we make a decision about it. Then take action.

    We didn’t know what Facebook would do w/ our info or that they would do anything with it. It felt like we were just sharing w/ our friends inside the clubhouse called Facebook. Now we realize the walls have had ears all along and they are looking to keep the lights on and buy a shore house by capitalizing on what they’ve overheard us talking about, and it feels creepy. When you feel creepy you change your behavior.

    The question for users and Facebook and their advertisers is this: are we so thrilled at reconnecting in this way that we will stay and deal with it? Will we decide to find a new clubhouse and go enmasse since we can tell everyone where the new party is with 1 post?
    The advertisers are the catalyst for this (FB investors want to cash in on the ad $$ they control) and suffer either way: they will lose true data on us if we stay and begin to fabricate ourselves or they’ll have to follow us to the new clubhouse and reinvest to set up their tables at the new party.

  9. Dave Allen
    May 26th, 2010 @ 9:45 am

    Carla,

    You give a very astute overview of the Facebook user scenario. And I agree, the shift could be quick and sudden, as on the web the phrase “too big to fail” doesn’t hold water. Also I’ve often wondered just how much of the personal data that people share, is actually accurate. There are many ways to connect online and there will be many more…

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