Facebook is now rivalling Google for total time spent on the web. Users have long worried about Google and privacy. I've read Google terms of service and privacy policy, and I'm willing to sacrifice some privacy in order to take advantage of Google's cutting edge IT. It amazes me, though, that people are willing to give up both privacy and intellectual property to use Facebook. Obviously, they have no idea what they've gotten themselves into.
Most people sign up for web services without reading the Terms of Service or Privacy Policy. Facebook is the one name-brand web service for which users should definitely read both. Here they are:
http://www.facebook.com/policy.php
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
If you're on or considering using Facebook, you should read them right now, or at least read the digest below.
1. Facebook's layout is a disaster
Creating a Facebook account is a snap. Logging onto Facebook is a piece of cake. Finding friends takes no time at all, partly because Facebook will find them for you. Intentionally finding a feature, however, is terribly difficult. Facebook is a navigational nightmare.
From a business perspective, Facebook's main goal is to keep you happily thrashing about the site so you are continually viewing its advertisements. Retail stores pioneered this strategy back in the '60s and grocery stores and casinos have got it mastered: the longer you're in the store, the more you're likely to spend. To keep you in the store longer, grocery stores try to achieve a balance of confusability and usability. Casinos have abandoned all veneer of customer friendliness—they all but lock you in.
2. Facebook owns your content
Facebook can do anything it wants with anything you have posted on the site, including your photos, music, video, messages, etc. including selling it to others.
3. Facebook Applications are allowed to have different terms of service and privacy policies from those of Facebook (and those differences are nearly invisible)
Applications you enable may have terms of use and privacy policies different from those of Facebook. Facebook does not screen application developers or check that their applications do not misuse your content or violate your privacy.
4. "Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience."
5. If you invite a friend to join Facebook, Facebook can keep your friend's information on file. This information includes, at a minimum, that friend's email or IM contact information.
6. Facebook can "supplement" your profile using other sources
"Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook platform developers, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags)...to supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links)."
7. Facebook may use information in your profile
"Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties."
8. Facebook owns and can sell everything but your name.
Combining these terms, Facebook can sell everything but the name you registered in your profile. They can sell your entire profile, all the content you have on the site, and any information they've gathered about you from any source.
9. Facebook can share everything everything you post on Facebook without telling you.
"We do not provide contact information to third party marketers without your permission. We share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you."
So Facebook does not provide contact information to third party marketers, but Facebook can make the call to share your information with third parties whenever they want. I.e. "Reasonably necessary to offer the service" in marketing-speak means "if you want to keep using Facebook, we have to stay in business by making a profit selling your info".
"...we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies." Facebook can share your information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies to protect its interests or property. That's not a particularly assertive privacy standard.
What to do?
You can opt-out of some of these conditions at http://www.facebook.com/privacy/, though opting-out of information sharing through Applications requires removing many of applications that make Facebook functional (like causes, events, gifts, groups, mycalendar, notes, photos, posted items, video, and more).
So users should explore these 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know.
This February, Facebook made what some are calling a "digital land grab", revising language in its terms of service that stated quite clearly that Facebook would own a user's content forever, even after they deleted their Facebook account. Here's the coverage of that controversy:
2/16/09:
New York Times: Facebook’s Users Ask Who Owns Information
Mark Zuckerberg's mea culpa, On Facebook, People Own and Control Their Information
2/17/09:
Webware: Facebook polls users on service terms update
Webware: EPIC readying federal complaint over Facebook privacy policy
2/18/09:
New York Times: Facebook Withdraws Changes in Data Use
This was not Facebook's only public revolt. Where Google's slogan is "Don't Be Evil.", this February's debacle was Facebook's third attempt to be evil. The last six paragraphs of this New York Times overview of Facebook explains.
A little bit relatedly (look out, California):
Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly To Run For California Attorney General
This blog post is my opinion and reflects the facts about Facebook during the time I researched them over winter 2008-2009.
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