The class topic this week has brought on a lot of interesting questions and concerns. What does it mean to have an identity on the internet? No one can see that embarrassing photo of last year’s New Year’s party I deleted…right? Do I really know who my friends are? Just how secure are those social networking sites?
Well, I know one result of our discussions: I edited my Facebook profile and tweaked the privacy settings…even though it seemed futile. The editing was for potential employers who may have a special back door deal with the big FB to check me out. The privacy settings change was to lull my mind into a false sense of security. While only my friends can see my profile now (supposedly), Facebook still has the means to stalk its users when they go to other sites:
“Facebook in November introduced a marketing program called Beacon to keep their users on the site longer. In this feature, Overstock.com Inc., Fandango Inc. and dozens of other companies agreed to notify Facebook every time one of its users made a purchase on one of their sites. In turn, Facebook began notifying those users’ friends of the purchases,” (Vauhini Vara).
Beacon was released in November of 2007. Angry users forced the third parties involved to pull out. However, Facebook Connect is a more recent, smarter (and optional) brain child of the FB big wigs. Facebook Connect is a little more interesting; not only can users do nifty things like share their movie ratings, but the sites the users frequent can gather information from the user more or less without their knowledge (because let us be honest, who reads user agreements and privacy statements in full, if ever?). Douglass Macmillan’s article on Facebook Connect creates the big picture:
“Announced last July, Facebook Connect has already signed up more than 8,000 partner sites, many of which plan to use data collected on Facebook members for their own purposes. Joost, a video-viewing site that integrated with Facebook Connect in December, checks the ages of viewers entered on their Facebook profiles to give its own content partners — CBS (CBS), for example — a better idea of which Joost users are watching CBS programming.”
Creepy.
Macmilan also provides this gem of a quote that I find wonderfully (in that ‘HMM, makes you wonder’ way) ironic: “Digg Chief Executive Jay Adelson, who says his site has no plans to target ads based on users’ Facebook profiles, concedes that the possibility exists. “There is the opportunity for using profile information for advertising,” Adelson says.”
Really, Jay? That’s interesting. The Minnesota bar and restaurant ads on my profile must be just a coincedence. I feel so much better.
Google Me!
Have you ever Googled yourself? I have! There was nothing–well, almost nothing–interesting. Not too surprising, since my friends have a hell of a time simply finding the right ‘me’ on Facebook. Who knew my name was so common? Google, apparently. Hundreds of me-but-not-mes clog up the search enough that only some professional photos of me-me popped up.
Shrug-worthy, but I don’t worry less that something horrible and extremely embarrassing will show up. I’ve been careful over the years, only using my real name sparingly, and usually only nicknames (as you can see on this blog). However, sometimes even supposedly secure website content can be revealed by the Google machine:
“Google turned up detailed monthly expenses and employee salaries at the National Speleological Society’s site, caves.org. Says the group’s president Scott Fee, “That ain’t supposed to be up there.” [...] All manner of personal correspondence, including transcripts of intimate instant-messaging exchanges, can be unearthed by search engines. Pamela Dixon, a privacy advocate at the World Privacy Forum, tells of an elementary school teacher whose contract was not renewed with a Solano County, Calif. school district. This item appears in the minutes of a school board meeting. The announcement still comes up second upon Googling her name,” (David Whelan).
The internet is a big place. If I tried hard enough I could find something nearly forgotten.
Nice work Ms. Foster!
I thoroughly enjoyed your blog post. It was well written and was visually appealing. The things that I enjoyed most from your post were that you used a lot of quotes and ideas from our readings that enhanced your point of view, and that it was written with a unique voice. Lines like “Macmillan also provides this gem of a quote that I find wonderfully…ironic” caught my attention and made me want to keep reading.
I was also impressed by the formatting of the direct quotes from our readings into your blog. With such lengthy chunks of information from another source it was nice to see it all grouped together in the fashion that you chose.
Keep up the good work.