After last weeks posting, I began to think about privacy again! and here is why I am concerned about privacy. This month, Google's privacy policy is discussed here and there. However, Google is not the first giant online service who changed its privacy policy when the users are "settled in."
Here is what facebook did from 2005 to 2011 re: their privacy policy.
A quick summary of FB privacy change 2005 - 2011
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2005: No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.
2006: …We understand you may not want everyone … to have the information you share on Facebook; … Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community …
2007: … Your name, school name, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network unless you alter your privacy settings…
2009: Facebook is …to share your information with anyone you want. …You should review the default privacy settings and change them … Information set to “everyone” is publicly available …may be imported and exported by us and others …. The default privacy setting for certain types of information … are set to “everyone.”
December 2009: … such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone…and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.
April 2010: When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. …The default privacy setting for certain types of information … are set to “everyone.”
April 2011: …Facebook is about sharing information with others …. We share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you…
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I am sure they kept changing it after 2011. Please check FB's current privacy policy here.
As Google now has one privacy policy on tens of products of theirs. Small changes may make a big difference now. Will keep an eye on their privacy policy changes!
I see we're on the same wavelength again in terms of blog posts, huh? Great minds think alike! :)
ReplyDeletecourtney! now you scare me! We should not talk to each other until the end of the semester! lol
DeleteBTW I really believe social networking services have to be regulated by law the same as public utilities mainly because of the privacy/personal information trade concerns... I think I will keep writing about this. We can talk about it together! :D
To me, that's absolutely terrifying. To actually read the shift in policy, to me, shows that Facebook's primary reason to exist is to gather information about its users. I have never had an "app" on my Facebook and after reading this, I never will!
ReplyDeleteright? their privacy policy has changed from day to night. There has to be a regulation or a legal restriction to stop them from doing this. Like many others I am stuck in Google... BIG TIME! If, one day, Google tells me "you should post your picture in bikinis on your blog, or we will completely delete your entire Google account." I will have to post my picture in a swimsuit...argh SERIOUSLY!
DeleteI don't know....what's so wrong with this? Let's be the devils advocate? What are you putting out there that's so personal? I guess if it's a picture of a bikini that's what you want!!
ReplyDeleteI think it is not right as FB kept changing their privacy policy not necessary with the users' knowledge. just a thought :)
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