Facebook Privacy Piracy: New Round of Privacy Concerns Suround The Web's Fourth Reich.
by Ian R Thorpe
2 October 2011
Last year at their annual corporate mutual-masturbationfest f8, Facebook revealed a new set of social plugins. While Webfuhrer Zuckerberg may have thought users would love the new features for the way they trampled on users rights, what happened was concerns about Facebook's contempt for users privacy or civil rights became a major point of discussion throughout the traditional and online media and anywhere people gathered to chat. Many of us who love the web but hate what semi autistic little fascists who run social networking companies are doing to it wallowed in schadenfreude as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was stretched on the rack of media examination over this and were relieved when the company made numerous changes until the discussion finally fizzled out a bit.
Once again controversy surrounds facebooks new features for "sharing" details of your private life with people you don't know and some you do know but would prefer not to. When will this most fascistic of corporate entities get the message. Zuckrberg, fuck the fucking fuck off out of my private life.
The problem with technology nerds like Zuckerberg and his no-life little sidekicks is one they get an idea embedded in their obsessive - compulsive little brains it will take an atomic bomb to shift it. They were never going to give up that easily on their nerds wet dream of controlling the internet.
Like those political scams we are told protect our security but that are really aimed at enslaving us under an Orwellian Big Brother regime, Zuckerberg's plan to put every detail of your private life never went away. Facebook just put it on the back burner while they thought of a way they good disguise it as something good.. Last week, Facebook held this year’s f8 event, and of course made more gobsmacking announcements about how they despise users, including the new Timeline feature (which still hasn’t been rolled out to everybody) and the new Open Graph, which makes apps a lot more information sharing-friendly.
Naturally, more information shared with total stangers, means more privacy concerns. And don't think choosing to show your stuff to "friends" only. Their friends can see it too if those third parties are just the teenyest bit web savvy. And of course your friends friends could possibly include your friendly neighbourhood stalker, sex pest or mad axeman. Nice ...
Analysts The Poynter Institute says Facebook and news organizations are pushing the boundaries of online privacy and that “Facebook again my have gone too far in its quest to make privacy obsolete and that this time some news organizations could get burned by going along with it.”
Poynter Digital Media Fellow Jeff Sonderman calls out new Facebook apps like the Washington Post’s Social Reader, and similar offerings from The Guardian and The Daily, as well as Yahoo News, which is having readers sign up to have their reading activity streamed to their Facebook profile. Mashable founder Pete Cashmore talked about this in another article saying that he saw on Facebook that someone he knows professionally was reading articles with titles like: “Heather Morris on Breast Implants,” and “Perrey Reeves Shows Off Bikini Body.”
Is this a major issue? Probably not if people are sensible and pay cash anonymously when they visit the porn shop or buy sexy lingerie for their non existent girlfriend, but it gives some people a queasy feeling to think of everyone they connect with on Facebook being able to see every page they look at. And you can bet that more and more sites will rush to get on board with this new Open Graph, just as they did after last year’s f8. And a little carelressness could destroy a relationship, result in social embarrassment or get somebody fired from their job.
In an earlier article I addressed the way Facebook could tracking your web browsing activity even when you’re logged out. An Australian hacker blogged about a test he ran looking at Facebook's cookies' behaviour. Facebook’s initial response was that it doesn’t track users across the web, but uses cookies on social plugins to personalize content, help improve what Facebook does or for safety/security reasons. In other words they don't track you across the web but wherever you go they are likely to be their waiting to log and display news of your visit.
The logged out cookies specifically, they said, are used for safety and protection, including IDing spammers/phishers, detecting when someone unauthorized is trying to access accounts, helping users get back into their accounts if they’re hacked, dialing registration for under-age users, etc.
Either way, Facebook’s responses did not convince law enforcement agencies from urging the regulatory bodies to investigate Facebook. According to MSNBC, the co-chairmen of the United States Congress’s Bi-Partisan Caucus(Reps. Edward Markey and Joe Barton) want the Federal Telecommunication Committee to investigate the company over “potential” privacy violations.
MSNBC quotes this letter from the Caucus:
“As co-chairs of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, we believe that tracking user behavior without their consent or knowledge raises serious privacy concerns,” they said. “When users log out of Facebook, they are under the expectation that Facebook is no longer monitoring their activities. We believe this impression should be the reality. Facebook users should not be tracked without their permission.”
Facebook of course denies there is any security risk or privacy breach. Of course they would say that, wouldn't they.
Regardless of all this, no company wants the kind of bad press that Zuckerberg and Co's bright ideas consistently generate, particularly as its latest wheeze is to try to persuade people to to put their entire lives on Facebook via the Timeline. One wonders how long the user community will put up with Facebok's fascistic behaviour. As for myself, Mr Zuckerberg can fuck the fucking fuck right off. I will never click on his ads, agree to display information on the site without my specific knowledge (i.e. direct posting, bookmarking or clicking a "like" button.) or dowload any apps unless I can look at the source code to see what they do.
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Facebook's Privacy Priacy
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Webupon Facebook - privacy issues
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