By Colette Filatreau
The Federal Trade Commission has taken on the almighty challenge of PRIVACY! Specifically, privacy on the internet. (Read more about the FTC’s new consumer privacy mission here: http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/) Publicizing their commitment to this cause, the FTC hosted a panel at UC Berkeley on January 28th, called “FTC – Exploring Privacy: A Roundtable Series,” which presented a wide variety of privacy-educated professionals, academics, and employees of social networking companies like Facebook and LinkedIn. The panel’s point was to discuss the many facets of privacy, and ultimately, to answer what has become a rather significant question: As they’re bombarded by the 21st century onslaught of information-sharing, cyber-stalking, and social networking, do consumers reserve the right to maintain their private lives?
Yes, of course they do. But perhaps more importantly, to what extent do consumers CARE about privacy? Is not the point of social networking to relate to others, and doesn’t that include a decent amount of information-sharing? So, final question: How can we encourage consumers to LEARN about privacy, and then make educated decisions based on the knowledge they obtain?
On December 9th, 2009, Facebook employees took their first stab at this. They updated Facebook’s Privacy Settings, allowing each user (all told, there are about 300 million) to determine which information they wish to share, and with whom. On the Facebook Privacy Policy page, Facebook employees are fairly blunt about their end goal:
“We want to earn your trust by being transparent about how Facebook works.”
Facebook was quite adamant about this. At 6AM California time, a link to Facebook’s updated Privacy Policy appeared at the top of every user’s homepage, along with a stern encouragement that all users read it, thoroughly. And according to Facebook employees at the FTC panel, 1/3 of the Facebook population updated their privacy settings! This was far more users than they expected. Is education what we need, then? A little coaching to guide us toward a more secure online life?
A glance at third party applications illustrates some pretty blatant privacy issues. Example: Section 3 of Facebook’s Privacy Policy, all about third party apps, clearly states that Facebook “cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules.” The FTC panel discussed this at some length, calling third party apps “one of the most common privacy-breachers.” They are quite prevalent on Facebook, indeed, as users certainly notice through their News Feeds (Petville, Graffiti, SuperPoke, How Well Do You Know Me?, Which Disney Princess Are You?!, and many, many more). And even with Facebook’s re-vamped Privacy Policy, as well as a disclaimer that appears immediately when a third party app is clicked, users are still joining them like crazy. And once they join, even for just ONE use, their personal Facebook information—all of it—is not only released to that app, but their Facebook Privacy Settings are no longer binding. The question here, then, is do users read the Privacy Page, and the disclaimer, and just not care? Or, are they not REALLY reading? Either way, at least Facebook is trying to inform. How users choose to respond to the information, well, that is their choice.
Now, the reality is, nothing came up during the FTC panel about any horrible ramifications of joining third party apps, or any other privacy-breaching phenomena. No significant number of people have been robbed, killed, or even notably threatened as a result of playing Petville on Facebook. So, I may take interest in consumer privacy, I may educate myself, and hell, I may even go so far as to wake up at the crack of dawn to attend a panel on the stuff…But, that just means I’m dorky, and a little paranoid. You can choose to participate in as many “Which Disney Princess Are You!?” applications as you damn well please. Just know that by doing so, you’re releasing your information, photos, and friends, to possibly thousands of people. And if this bothers you, then do more research, learn as much as you can. That is all. Please, learn. Because knowledge is power, and power is awesome. Just ask Facebook…
[Image via Squidoo]
This is great food for thought, CF. Personally I think that privacy should be ensured to a point. I hate it when use the “right to Internet privacy” as a shield for bad behavior such as harassment, abuse, cyberstalking, etc. There needs to be a point where a person’s right to privacy is given up if they are acting in a way which is IRL illegal or harmful to another person. I don’t really know where the happy medium is — however — I do know that the issue in its entirety isn’t one which can be resolved if people are passive and ignorant about the core facts at the heart of the matter. Thanks for recapping this really important roundtable for GGotS!
Kate