Privacy on the Internet

There’s been a lot of back and forth about privacy on the web for some time now, and with good reason. If there aren’t appropriate privacy measures implemented in certain instances, then peoples lives could potentially be severely disrupted.  But when it comes to sites like Facebook, it begs the question; how much privacy should a person have on a social networking site?

To me, you should be afforded the opportunity to keep your life private on the web, and if a site can’t offer that, then someone should create a site that can.  A site like Facebook is entirely dependent on its userbase, and if they poison their food supply, they die.  Without me, and my 400 friends, and their 400 friends, and their friends 400 friends, Facebook is just a collection of source code.

Now, Facebook, and anyone else who runs a web site is free to do whatever it wishes with the actual design, functionality and what content is presented to the user.  Hypothetically , Facebook could force you to watch 30 minutes of ads before you are allowed to use their site if they so wished.  Where the issue comes into play is what is done with the content created by the user, whether it be status updates, notes, comments, etc.

This is not an easy issue to resolve.  On one hand, you could argue that a person should be free to go on Facebook, lock down their profile so that only friends can see what they write, and espouse about their adoration of Pol Pot without fear that a potential employer could Google their name, and find their writings.  This still is America, last I checked.

At the same time, this is Facebook’s website, and the management might feel that allowing users to hide everything about themselves from sight while they exist in Facebook’s virtual space, is an affront to their personal beliefs.  Furthermore, Facebook is a business, and their major source of income is derived from advertising.  In order to better serve the advertising community, and to better grow their business, allowing third parties access to information about their users is a necessity if they plan to continue to survive.  If an advertiser is unaware of the type of audience they are targeting, they are not going to invest the money.  Why would Activision spend money advertising their new Call of Duty game on Facebook, if they don’t know if they are advertising to the type of people who play Call of Duty?

Again, there is no easy answer.  From my perspective, if someone wants to know what kind of music I like in order to advertise a particular type of music to me, I don’t really care, as long as it’s not intrusive in my life.  I love sites like Last.FM, where my experience is catered to me based on what I like and do not like.  It’s much better than wandering in this enormous sea of content to try to find something that I enjoy.  Furthermore, what is Sony going to do that impedes on my personal freedoms based on what kind of movies I am a fan of on Facebook?  Do I have to worry about Sony stealing my identity?  Do I have to worry about them coming and robbing my house?  No.

But I feel that status updates, notes, comments, should be private.  This is communication between one or more people, and while it is on a public website, it still is a private conversation in the same way that I can have a private conversation with someone while sitting next to them on the El train, or the CTA Bus.  There’s no reason that Microsoft, or Sony, or Dell, or Amazon, or anyone needs to know that my grandmother passed away, or that I got into a car accident, or that I love Sally Green (which I do, what a lady!).

There needs to be a happy medium.  I don’t think people would care if there were access for third parties to your “interests” or your “favorite music” but there needs to be equal protection for your more private content.

One thing that also may help Facebook; stop making comments like “We are going to own the social media content”.  That just sounds too totalitarian for most people.