Last week, 10 privacy organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. Led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the complaint says Facebook's privacy policies "violate federal consumer protection law." Inadvertently sharing your list of friends with outside companies, and your profile information with users beyond your circle of friends, are among the issues EPIC disputes.
Short-Term Gains
Most users view Facebook as a safe place to share information with other users whom they select: a closed network of friends and family who have been invited to see their information. By quietly pushing its users beyond that privacy comfort zones, the company may indeed profit -- in the short term.
But if Facebook loses the trust of its users, the mounting scorn will cost the company its reputation. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook officers are taking advantage of their trusting customers who don't see their information getting sold off to salivating advertisers. And they'll ultimately have the same reputation as the kid who signs your yearbook without your permission.
Facebook's privacy page notes that the site has changed "a lot" in the past five years, and that "people are generally sharing more information, and" -- wishful thinking, perhaps -- "they are becoming more comfortable sharing more information." The recent privacy changes, it says, are meant to "address these shifting social norms" -- although some critics suggest that the real goal here is to better compete with Twitter, where most users open their updates to all.
Legal Challenges
Whatever their motives, the company clearly wants users to share more information with "everyone," because such information has value to potential advertisers. DailyFinance's Tom Johansmeyer wrote that it was only a matter of time until someone decided to challenge Facebook legally. A Facebook spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that it "discussed the privacy program with many regulators, including the FTC, prior to launch and expect[ed] to continue to work with them in the future."
What would be most useful and honest, though, would be for Facebook to bonk users over the head with the message that their updates are being made public. That may not best serve the company's needs, but users should not be duped into opening up their information. Because while getting 350 million users to share their personal information publicly may attract advertisers, it erodes the trust of those who use Facebook and make it an increasingly powerful network.
If you want to stay in contact with your friends and family of whom you know, there are plenty of other resources. How hard is it to figure that public social networking sites are dangerous? HELLO! At least we don't live in the 50's (although to me, it would be quite nice) where there are no phones or internet. We can't seem to trust our own technology, and all I can really say is that I know how to avoid such chaotic *************. I will never risk losing my personal information, you must be aware of what you're exposing of yourself, physically, mentally, emotionally, ect. C'mon people...........we're being taken advantage of in every possible way. Don't be another one to be brainwashed, I really don't want to die of our own stupidity.