Facebook Creating Privacy Issues?

Facebook has decided to give third-party developers and external websites authorization to access users' home addresses and cellphone numbers despite criticism from privacy experts, Facebook users, and even congressmen Edward Markey and Joe Barton.

"Mobile phone numbers and personal addresses, particularly those that can identify teenagers using Facebook, require special protection," said Rep. Edward Markey. "We must ensure that this sensitive information is safeguarded, with clear, distinct permissions so that users know precisely what's in store when they opt to share this data with third parties.

After the congressmen sent a letter to Facebook expressing their concerns over the new functionality, Facebook responded and ultimately reaffirmed it's decision to still allow third parties to request access to users' addresses and phone numbers.

Facebook's plan to open up users' addresses and phone numbers to third-party sites and services is the latest frontier in Facebook's often controversy-filled efforts to encourage users' to be looser in sharing their information.

Privacy experts have warned that even if this new feature included improved notifications and protection for minors, it could still endanger users' personal information and increase their risk of being targeted by scams, spam, and identity thieves.

"People never thought when they were posting this data that it would be accessible to anyone but friends. There's a real mismatch of expectations around that," said Mary Hodder, chairman of the Personal Data Ecosystem Consortium.

Facebook is once again walking the thin line of breaking users' privacy. So, what's your take on Facebook's latest move? Are they officially crossing the line of privacy? Or are they still in the right since Facebook is, in fact, a public site?

I can't help but feel bad for Facebook users because it seems that Facebook's approach really is "Everything on here is public, therefore, you give us anything and it's completely fair game." I am at least happy about Facebook saying they will make an effort to keep users aware of when they could be giving information away and asking for permission.

Photo Credit: digitaltrends.com via Creative Commons

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10 Privacy Settings for Facebook Users

Everyone has heard those stories about people getting fired, secrets coming out and ultimately people finding out things that others don't want them to know. This can be considered news on various levels; a great deal of these stories happen because of Facebook. If you want to protect yourself from becoming unwanted news, here are some privacy tips to take into consideration.

Step 1: Understand Your Friend Lists

You are now able to group your friends and control their individual privacy settings. It's also possible to group a friend in more than one group like family, friends, co-workers and more. This is handy for controlling who sees what on your profile. For those whom are placed in two different groups, the one with the most restrictive privacy settings will be enforced for that person.

Step 2: Remove Yourself from Search

This is handy for professionals and teachers who don't want students and collegues in their personal lives but is not limited to just them. If you do not want to be found in a search, simply visit the FB privacy settings page, click on "edit settings", enter your password and next to "Facebook Search Results" select the "only friends" setting.

Step 3: Remove Yourself from Google

Some users like the attention of being more public about their things, if you aren't then I would advise removing yourself from Google index and search engines. This can be done by visiting the search privacy settings page and simple uncheck the box next to "Public Search Results" which says "allow indexing".

Step 4: Avoid the Infamous Photo Tag Mistake

Head back to privacy page, go to the section "Photos and Videos of Me", click on the drop down selector, click on the "custom" option and then select "only me". This will prevent any pictures from mistakenly ruining your rep.

Step 5: Protect Your Albums

If you want to limit access on your personal albums you are able to change the settings to "only friends". Unless you are pursuing a career in professional photography then, of course, you'd want to do the opposite.

Step 6: Avoid the Post-Breakup FB Effect
If you're one of those people who don't want attention when changing your relationship status, not everyone is, then I would suggest going to the settings page and changing the "Family and Relationship" setting to "only me".

Step 7: Control What Information Applications Can Access

When you visit some of the applications on FB you may be asked if they may access your informations; this includes name, gender, birthday, profile picture and others. The more restrictive you make your settings the less information those applications can use. You're able to control those settings here.

Step 8: Make Contact Information Private

Have you ever gotten mysterious calls or texts from people you are certain you didn't give your number to? Well it turns out that you might have without actually thinking of it. It makes sense if you're going to put that kind of information on your page that you may want to restrict it to whom you trust with it. There are two ways to do this. First you can visit the privacy page and customize it to your liking; secondly, you can do it straight from your profile by clicking edit, clicking on the locks and customizing it from there.

Step 9: Avoid Embarassing Wall Posts

As much fun as you had at that party last weekend, you may not want the entire world to know. Your friends may not be using Facebook for professional use and may not think twice about posting things you don't necessarily want shared about it on your wall. Of course most people don't want to uncheck the "Friends may post to my wall", but you go to your privacy options, scroll down the page and click the drop selector by the "can see wall posts by friends" and customize those settings.

Step 10: Understand the Privacy Settings

Everyone - literally means everyone (internet, companies, friends...)

Friends and Networks - Friends and the networks you are in (universities or professional organization, cities...)

Friends of Friends - I'm not sure why you would want this option but it basically just restricts in some of your networks

Friends Only - this is pretty straight forward.

Custom - manually selecting individual friends for different settings.

Be smart with your social networking. Stay out of the negative news.

Photo Credit: CreativeCommons, User:ZyMOS.

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Paradox Over Internet Privacy

This past week, President Obama introduced a radical proposition that could end with the concept of Internet-communication as we know it.

On September 27, the New York Times reported on new regulations being considered by President Obama's administration that would allow national security officials to wiretap all kinds of online-communication platforms. This bill would require all Internet-based communication companies to redesign their servers and adhere to federal security measures of wiretapping laws.

Although the bill won't be submitted to lawmakers until next year, the bill is already rising doubts and criticism. Among the opposers, one of them is Christopher Calabrese, Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

"Mandating that all communications software be accessible to the government is a huge privacy invasion," Calabrese said.

From e-mail to Facebook and even mobile texting, law enforcement would be able to tap private communication software and track conversations in an effort to identify possible threats to the U.S., including terrorist attacks.

Furthermore, another concern brought by this bill is the possible damage to all online-communication systems in the U.S. Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, expressed his concern of the bill in a special report by CNN.

"Communications systems that have no inherent eavesdropping capabilities are more secure than systems with those capabilities built in," Schneier continued "Any surveillance system invites both criminal appropriation and government abuse."

In other words, not only will it be easier for federal security to spy on people but criminals would be more likely to do it as well, which I think defeats the purpose of increasing security measures.
Obviously, this new bill would have a drastic impact on individuals' privacy.

The free and open sharing of ideas and thoughts and the private communication scheme provided by the Internet years ago, could be seriously damaged if this law were to be approved.

Of course, security is an important issue, but will you be willing to give up your privacy for increased security?

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Time to Review Online Privacy Laws

The New York Times reported that the push to strengthen online privacy laws was backed by a coalition calling itself Digital Due Process. The coalition wants to ensure files and documents remain protected from easy access by legal and government authorities.

The coalition includes the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology. The coalition also includes technology companies such as AT&T, Google, and Microsoft. The group wants to safeguard information and require law-enforcement agencies to use a search warrant rather than a subpoena to obtain online data.

Under current law, information on Facebook and other social media sites is accessible through a simple subpoena, which can be issued easily. The group wants Congress to update the current Electronic Communications Privacy Act written in 1986, a decade before Internet became mainstream.

While advocates say new rules are merely intended to ensure protection enjoyed in the past as technology evolves, they acknowledge they will face resistance from law-enforcement agencies.
It seems clear that the electronic privacy laws are outdated and need to be reviewed. Whether you store a file in a cabinet at home or on your laptop, your privacy should remain the same.

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5 Ways To Improve Facebook's User Privacy

It doesn't take long before privacy advocates and users complain about new services introduced by Facebook. This time Senators from across the United States have taken a stand. Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Al Franken (D-Minn.), and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) are involved and ready to fight.

The senators are taking on the issue of the recent changes to Facebook's privacy policy as well as the Instant Personalization services that allows third-party websites to customize site features to users' tastes. The senators are asking FTC to recommend privacy guidelines for online social networks. This may in turn cause lawmakers to introduce legislation to govern privacy on social networks.

Facebook however, has been responsive to user concerns in the past and may do the same in this situation. According to Ian Paul there are several things Facebook could do to improve their likability.

First Facebook must make the Opt-out option for the Instant Personalization feature much easier to understand. Apparently users are being buried within the privacy settings and Facebook forces users to click several times to opt-out.

Facebook must become much more upfront about changes and rewrites. Last Friday Facebook reworded the privacy policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities unknown to many of it's users.

Stop being vague. Facebook tends to use ambiguous language such as: "Connections. Facebook enables you to connect with virtually anyone and anything you want... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who you can see the connection on your profile page."

Reading between the lines you must understand that this connections means at minimum your friends, likes, interests, city, hometown, family, relationships, networks, activities, interests, and places. It is very unclear on how these connections are made public and to whom

Let the user control the information access. Facebook users interacting with a third-party website or application need to have more control over what information those third parties can get from their profiles.

Finally the fifth improvement needed is to bring back the 24-hour user data storage policy. Third parties you interact with are not aloud to sell users Facebook data or use it other than in relation to Facebook. But it does make it easier for rogue sites to build databases on Facebook profile information.

Facebook should heed these warnings or else Congress may take action and soon.

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