Facebook and Privacy

I detest the fact that so many sites push Facebook to comment on their pages especially when they ignore Disqus and other such services. Today I went to install Spotify and lo-and-behold, I am unable to sign in without a Facebook account.

I understand that Facebook wants to be the portal to the web - the same as AOL a decade ago - but I hope they understand why I, and others concerned with privacy, need to push back.

Just the fact that I MUST have a Facebook account to use this product; that information is being shared between the two companies - and I am forced to opt out, apparently each time I log in, gives me great concern regarding the battles that will be fought in the not too distant future over the definition of personal data (privacy).

Facebook Being Sued to Remove Data

Two years ago a woman was murdered in Staten Island, NY. The EMT who arrived at the scene took a photo of the murder scene and posted it on his Facebook page. The murderer was caught and convicted and the EMT lost his job and certification. Now the family is suing Facebook regarding turning over the photos in question and identifying the users who saw and downloaded the photos.

I'm not a fan of Facebook as it concerns privacy rights but in this case the family is in the wrong. The only thing that can be done is to remove the offending photo from the EMT's account (and, if it's in the TOS, to close the account). However, now the family is asking the courts to force Facebook to violate others' privacy by finding out who "viewed" and "downloaded" the photos. Assuming the data exists (unlikely) and assuming that the newspaper account of the suit is correct the family is asking something quite unreasonable.

Facebook using Social Authentication

Facebook has introduced an "innovative way to verify real users rather than using CAPTCHAS. Using the Social Login feature (or Social Authentication as Facebook calls it), users will be shown a few pictures of their friends and then they will be asked to name the person in those photos."

The logic is that it would be harder for hackers to be able to identify your friends. This would work quite well against a program but I'm not particularly thrilled by this idea in practice. A group trying to hack a celebrity's or political figure's site would be willing to do the research so they to would be able to recognize a large number of the person's friends. Thus compromising the security measure.

It does remind me of a photographic password system that XEROX PARC (I think it was XEROX PARC) came up with several years ago. I wonder why it never took off - that idea seemed to be excellent. The photographic system would take a photo - show it to you and say THIS IS THE PASSWORD. It would then make, as for example, twenty-nine variations on a theme. The human being would easily be able to remember the correct photo but our language is not nuanced enough for it to be accurately described to another.

Obviously there was a flaw to the system otherwise the idea would have spread.

Facebook and Privacy

Once again Facebook has added a feature which will share information beyond what most people will expect. There is a new privacy setting called "Instant Personalization" that shares data with non-Facebook websites and is automatically set to "Allow."

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kurt Opsahl notes, Facebook introduced this concept using the innocuous topic of "cooking." Who wouldn't want to be known as a fan of cooking? Unfortunately, the same rules apply to more controversial pages you might also like:

"Previously, you could list "cooking" as an activity you liked on your profile, but your name would not be added to any formal "Cooking" page. (Under the old system, you could become a "fan" of cooking if you wanted). But now, the new Cooking page will publicly display all of the millions of people who list cooking as an activity.

"Cooking is not very controversial or privacy-sensitive, and thus makes for a good example from Facebook's perspective. Who would want to conceal their interest in cooking? Of course, the new program will also create public lists for controversial issues, such as an interest in abortion rights, gay marriage, marijuana, tea parties and so on."
PC WORLD: Facebook Gets a Little Too Personal

Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > Instant Personalization and uncheck "Allow".

When you uncheck the box the following pop-up appears:

FWIW if your friends don't do this they will be sharing information about you.

Facebook surpasses Google

This week Facebook surpasses Google SE as the most used site on the internet.

Facebook becomes bigger hit than Google

I wonder - when will Facebook collapse? Certainly it will continue to rise in popularity for a while - but there will come a time (sooner rather than later) when privacy issues will come to the fore. There will be an "event" that will give people pause to be on Facebook. At that point Facebook will reach a fork in the road and must choose which path it will take: will it respect its user's privacy or will Zuckerman/Facebook continue down the path it's on.

I think that Facebook will continue down the path it's on, make it's money "today" and die out as it's replaced by a more privacy-friendly alternative.

Facebook partners with AOL

ReadWriteWeb has an excellent post on the partnership between Facebook and AOL. Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

The partnership reinforces the idea that our Facebook profile is at the center of our online existence. Whether or not someone is signed into AOL is no longer what's at stake here, it's whether or not the user is logged into Facebook.

With all its problems Facebook has become THE social networking site. Some people are concerned with Facebook becoming a "monopoly." Privacy, and Facebook's approach to personal information, is the concern; not monopoly powers.

Facebook's Privacy Policy Changes

I haven’t been happy with Facebook for a while now. My concerns can be placed into two categories: one is usability and the second is privacy. The usability issues have not improved and now, I fear, that the privacy issues have worsened. I have to thank EFF for reviewing Facebook’s Privacy Settings.

Although sold as a "privacy" revamp, Facebook's new changes are obviously intended to get people to open up even more of their Facebook data to the public. The privacy "transition tool" that guides users through the configuration will "recommend" — preselect by default — the setting to share the content they post to Facebook, such as status messages and wall posts, with everyone on the Internet, even though the default privacy level that those users had accepted previously was limited to "Your Networks and Friends"

At this point there's no "if" about it: the Facebook privacy transition tool is clearly designed to push users to share much more of their Facebook info with everyone, a worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level for most of Facebook's users

Looking even closer at the new Facebook privacy changes, things get downright ugly when it comes to controlling who gets to see personal information such as your list of friends. Under the new regime, Facebook treats that information — along with your name, profile picture, current city, gender, networks, and the pages that you are a "fan" of — as "publicly available information" or "PAI." Before, users were allowed to restrict access to much of that information. Now, however, those privacy options have been eliminated. For example, although you used to have the ability to prevent everyone but your friends from seeing your friends list, that old privacy setting — shown below — has now been removed completely from the privacy settings page.

Mr. Zuckerberg whatever happened to: ”Our philosophy is that people own their information and control whom they share it with..."

AOL, Google & Facebook

At one time AOL was the 800 pound gorilla. They were the social networking site of the 1990s (and I must say that I ridiculed the idea at the time). AOL tried to be the portal by which we all entered the web. They failed. At one time people feared the rise of Microsoft. Now Microsoft has become like AT&T: last years powerhouse and today's ho-hum large corporation.

What will become of Google and Facebook? Combined they will make one hell of a team.

Facebook and IE6

As of a few days ago Facebook no longer supports IE6. Hurray

Facebook puts up the following notice to IE6 users:

Did you know that your browser is out of date?

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is no longer supported. To get the best possible experience using our website we recommend that you upgrade to a newer web browser such as: Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer 8. The upgrade is free. If you're using a PC at work you should contact your IT administrator.

IE6 has been on the Facebook chopping block for about a year. See Facebook Doesn't Really Support IE6

What this mean for site owners, web developers, IAs, and the like is that one more nail is being put into the IE6 coffin. I'm not a Microsoft hater but IE6 is a terrible browser and testing for its non-standard idiosyncrasies takes an awful lot of time (money).

Of course, until big corporations do a system wide upgrade IE6 will continue to be a thorn in our side. Large corporation don't care if their employees can't use Facebook. It may even be considered to be a reason to forstall upgrades. :-) Nonetheless when major corporations, such as Facebook, stop supporting IE6 the writing is on the wall. IE6 is going the way of NN4+

As a side note, as far as my sites are concerned, IE6 is about 15% of the total usage. That's too high a percentage to ignore.

Social Media and Privacy

In case you haven't seen it read the story of How Facebook Ended My Marriage.

Update: A very strange new twist has made this much more public than I ever feared. Boing Boing, the top blog on the Internet, Time Magazine’s blog, the London Standard, Libération the French newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre, Fast Company have now all mentioned our experience. Is this the 21st century equivalent of a printed wedding announcement?

Yes Thomas it is the 21st C equivalent of a printed wedding announcement.

Facebook and Privacy

A week ago Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post stating thatOn Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information. And yet a few paragraphs into the post he writes:

One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person's sent messages box and the other in their friend's inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

Mr. Zuckerberg many people disagree with you. Facebook is not perceived of as email, where you send information to others. It is perceived to be a place where you can put up information, a journal so to speak, and share parts of it with friends and other parts with the world at large. Facebook is the medium by which the sharing takes place and as such *should* not have a say in the matter any more than does a piece of paper has a say in who can see a love note written on it. The perception is wrong, of course, that is why there is outrage.

Facebook has many problems. Privacy is the worst of those problems. As with email one should not put anything on Facebook which you would not be willing to have the whole world be aware of.

When a truly private system arises Facebook will reap what is has sown and go the way of earlier social networking sites. I don't wish this on Facebook, only that they recognize the importance of privacy. Today's teenagers will become tomorrows adults and they will not want their high school angst and insecurities displayed to their adult friends.

Facebook and MySpace

In case you're wondering about which social media website to concentrate your efforts upon take a look at this graph comparing Facebook and MySpace usage.

Facebook and Third-Party Apps

I have my problems with Facebook, but the one thing they do very well, and for me the most appealing aspect of the site, is their incorporation of third-party applications. There are many options to choose from and it is constantly expanding: quizzes, travel maps, feeds and much, much more.

This willingness to add more functionality, especially third-party apps, gives me confidence that they will not go the way of Friendster. Looking at the popularity of Facebook's Travel apps; their willingness to accept 3rd Party apps; noticing that Google's PicasaWeb is superior to what Facebook has yet done; knowing that Google is becoming an App superstore; it's not unthinkable that the day will come when Facebook and Google will combine forces. Or one will swallow the other.

What separates Blogs from other Social Media?

The taxonomy of social media is complex. Social media usually refers to Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and other sites. But in its widest sense social media can be any site that networks of people, including newsgroups, listservs and sites such as YouTube. YouTube is still primarily a file sharing site but with the addition of comments they are now more social media than file sharing sites.

Blogs are also part of on-line social networks but are different from the other social media sites in two ways. One person may have several blogs, each focusing upon a different topic but it rarely makes sense to have multiple Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. The second is the concept of time. In social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, it is the NOW that matters. Businesses may care to keep a record for legal purposes but most users rarely care about what was communicated 24 hours ago (if not 24 minutes ago). Whereas, with blogs, the continuity of posts matters. They are not focused upon the here and now.

All strategies used in attracting clients and consumers must focus first and foremost upon these two aspects, especially the concept of time.

Privacy, Social Media, Censorship and more

I just read several papers presented last June at the 6th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies in Cambridge, England. They were fascinating reads and are highly recommended.

Imagined Communities Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook focuses upon the quantity of data that is unwittingly shared on Facebook and other social networking sites.

Some [users] manage their privacy concerns by trusting their ability to control the information they provide and the external access to it. However, we find significant misconceptions among some members about the online community’s reach and the visibility of their profiles.

Ignoring the Great Firewall of China examines how governments, not only China's, prevent access to websites. Sometimes there is a bona fide law enforcement aspect of it such as access to child pornography and in counter-terrorism. Regardless of the legitimacy of a particular action, anyone interested in privacy issues ought to be aware of the activity.

The so-called "Great Firewall of China" operates, in part, by inspecting TCP packets for keywords that are to be blocked. If the keyword is present, TCP reset packets (viz: with the RST tag set) are sent to both endpoints of the connection, which then close. However, because the original packets are passed through the Firewall unscathed, if the endpoints completely ignore the Firewall's resets, then the connection will proceed unhindered. Once one connection has been blocked, the Firewall makes further easy-to-evade attempts to block further connections from the same machine. This latter behaviour can be leveraged into a denial-of-service attack on third-party machines.