privacy shmivacy
Facebook is one of, if not THE most used social network on the world wide interweb. I can say that I’ve been a member of this online community for about five years. Facebook is a very cool online application and provides a great way to keep in touch with family, friends, and old acquaintances all over the world. Sharing photos, videos, and links also makes for a jolly good online time. Recently, however, the Facebook group has put into place some new changes to personal profiles that have caused some controversy.
These changes include adjustments to the way that Facebook shares your personal profile information with third parties. What the changes boil down to is that Facebook has decided that things such as your profile info, likes, interests, movies, music, and book choices should be public information, along with your profile picture, gender, and basic account info. The Facebook group has now made it mandatory that these personal likes and interests be linked to Facebook Pages which are accessible by anyone. Also, if you choose not to allow your interests to be linked to these Facebook Pages, you are not permitted to use this section of your profile at all. The feature is disabled. Additionally, Facebook has added a new “feature” called “instant personalization.” This new feature, which is turned on by default, opts you in to allow third party websites that you visit to gather data from your personal profile to enhance your experience on their website. The third party is allowed to use your information, friend list, etc. to tailor their website for your visit. Some of the websites Facebook has partnered with on this project are Pandora and Yelp.
Now, again, I really like Facebook. It’s a lot of fun to use and a great way to waste time when you should be doing something else, but I think Facebook has gone too far this time. Over the 5 years I’ve been using the application, Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team have made several changes to their privacy policies. I can remember whispers, chats, and blogs posts about the past changes, but none like this one. Facebook is clearly taking advantage of and banking on the laziness of its users who won’t pay attention to the fact that the site is using and sending their personal information around the internet more swiftly than James Bond can pick up every chick he meets. Obviously there’s one and only one reason for the social network to do such a sneaky thing: money, money, and more money. Ok, that was three reasons. By sharing profile info with third parties, Facebook can make big bucks on advertising. Websites and companies will most definitely shell out the cash for ads which can target the most specific audience they want. I mean, why wouldn’t the ad agencies inundate their exact target markets?
Needless to say, I’m not too excited about Facebook’s decision. It’s going to be interesting to see what Facebook’s response is to the latest gossip. Currently, I am still part of the 500 million strong social network, but these latest policy changes have me pondering. But then again, Facebook’s so much fun! But then again, geez, I guess I may really have to start reading those terms and conditions when I sign up for things and not just scroll down and click “I agree.” I dunno….dare I say it…..Tweet Tweet.