September 2, 2010
Issues With Privacy On Facebook
A lot of people these days are always connected through a Bluetooth, on Facebook, or on Twitter, keeping up with loved ones and acquaintances. Sites such as this one is constantly requesting more personal information be revealed which can, ultimately serve as a threat to privacy. Facebook has a valid reason for doing so in that it provides much information to marketers and developers about what people want and need.
Whether or not this is in the best interest of individuals has been highly debated in the last several years. Protesters plea for more security and restraint whereas website masters claim the information is important and that it is in the best interests of individuals to “reveal all.”
A lot of users do not know that a number of websites employ IP tracking, which is a method that allows them to know exactly where you are, who you are chatting with on the Internet, and even what you type. nobull-ip-tracking.com/16/index.htm is one such website; however a number of others exist that use the same methods.
With new lawsuits being filed on a daily basis, how to protect individual rights on the Internet while not violating freedom of speech or the right of a person to reveal as much about themselves as they wish, has yet to be resolved. Recently, one particular site under a considerable amount of scrutiny regarding how personal information is managed is Facebook.
Somehow, people STILL find ways around even “privacy blocked” accounts within the Facebook site, forcing web designers to continually change and reformat the site. Because of this, the National Trade Commission set new rules that affect the kinds of moves Facebook can perform. As such, the site is no longer able to continually improve the services they offer.
As one of the largest social websites on the Internet, Facebook serves over 500 million users monthly. Because of the number of users, a lot of the changes Facebook initiated were meant to handle the masses and to address the fluctuating legal regulations. Unfortunately, this had led to certain issues with the website that were unforeseeable. Things like an unclear interface and news feed tied personal information into public forums that led to much criticism. What many fail to understand is that once personal information is placed on the Internet, it is vulnerable to accessibility.
An illustration of this is the Beacon Advertising System, which was used to document personal info of anyone who performed an Internet-based search. The info was relayed to people in that person’s address book along with a link and a statement similar to, “Check out what Sam has been up to online”. The contacts could then be taken to the website the person had been viewing. A lot of people on Facebook believed that this betrayed their privacy since not everyone wants their family and friends to know what he or she is searching on the web. Although certain adverse reactions resulted, Facebook has since removed this program.
Facebook, along with most other social networking websites, put a great deal of importance on the privacy of their users; however, in the end, the users have to be accountable for what information they put on the site that could be exposed. Online resources and website continually work to come up with new ideas to make our daily social network experiences both SAFER and more ENJOYABLE. Although many do their best, these sites will NEVER protect us completely, we should ALWAYS be mindful of just what information we post about ourselves - it could very easily wind up in the WRONG HANDS!
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