Why do people think that they have a presupposed expectation of privacy when they post something on the internet? And why are people pissed that Facebook and Google try to make money off of a basically free service? Recently, Facebook open up their API and initiated a Pilot Program called, Instant Personalization with Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft Docs.
So what does this mean? How does the Instant Personalization Pilot Program from Facebook effect my privacy?
Basically, when you visit a site like Pandora, which is a free internet radio station, it takes your information about your likes from Facebook, and creates a better radio station for you. For Yelp, it takes your restaurant preferences and your friends preferences and shows you what you might like first. It also can tell your friends what you like. This is what people are scared about. Somebody, who's supposed to be your "friend", might know that you secretly like Cher. Or even worse, you accidentally clicked that you like Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA, and now all your friends know it.
Or on Yelp, you rated the chinese restaurant down the street sub-par, in an open forum, and wrote a review of it, for everyone to see, now, the horror, everyone can see it.
So, the things you post on Facebook are available to companies that are spending money with Facebook in order to keep it free. If you don't want people to know something about you, there are better places than a social networking site to store it. Also, spend a couple seconds and change your settings if you are that worried about it.
Facebook isn't hacking into your computers to get the information from you. Your giving it to them and then getting mad that they're using it.
A second story that came out recently involved Googles Street View Cars picking up open wifi signals. If you don't know Google has developed a mapping system which basically has the Arial View and Street View of everything in the world, and is developing technology to view things not here yet. To do this, Google has cars that drive around with a camera taking a picture and delivering it through wifi to computers. When they drive through the neighborhoods they accidently picked up signals and information from WiFi signals that were open.
Some people might say that, that's like going into a house and stealing, and defending yourself by saying, "well the door was unlocked". But it's actually different. Google didn't hack into these signals, or even proactively try to get into the signal. The comparative would be you shoving a naked picture of yourself in someones face and getting mad that they looked, even if it was just for a second.
I am interested in the area of internet privacy for a few
reasons. I operate two companies, one is the Jewish Business Magazine and the other is ALC Risk Solutions. The Jewish Business Magazine is an online news periodical focuses on business in the Jewish Community. Our interest in internet privacy is numerous. For one, we are concerened about the future utilization of these great technologies to make the Jewish Business Magazine better for our readers and advertisers. We are also concerned because both Facebook and Google are Jewish founded technology companies with Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Lastly, we think that Facebook, Google and other social networking sites are great business tools when utilized correctly.
ALC Risk Solutions is a full service insurance and risk management consulting firm in Miami, Florida. Our concern with internet privacy is two-fold. We want to assist our clients with their risk mitigation, by educating them how to reduce their online risk. And second, we want to assist our commercial insurance clients with their internet risk mitigation and with their internet-based businesses. We write privacy liability insurance and cyber liability and internet liability insurance for numerous
internet companies including dating websites, social networking websites, auction websites, classified sites and web application companies. On the personal side, we recommend to be careful about what you post. Never post where you are, where you are going to be, or allow geopositioning posts. This tells everyone where you are, and where you are not. Monitor your children, and make sure they are not posting things that could be harmful to their reputation, the new slogan is something like, it's a thin line between instant and forever. Lastly, just use common sense. Post online as if you were posting on a public bulletin board. The internet can be a tool or a toy, or it can be a weapon of self-destruction.
Here's a Video from Facebook, showing how to use their privacy settings effectively.
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