Facebook privacy concerns

[azekeil]

I guess I'm more paranoid than most about this, but I feel that privacy is like entropy. Privacy can only be made worse, not better. Once something is revealed, it's kind of hard to take it back, and it's difficult to know what sorts of things will be possible in the future. Just because revealing certain details about yourself now is OK, doesn't mean that your decision might not turn around and bite you in the ass later. Take for example my decision to use my face in my icons. This has been fine, but I wrote a piece in the past about the increasing ease with which people can utilise software to identify faces. This makes my earlier decision around using my face in my icons look possibly ill-advised.

Facebook, however, goes one step further. It allows people to inform a computer (and people) that several different photos of a person are indeed the same person, and link that person back to a profile containing information. Admittedly, you can control what information is in that profile, and also you can (allegedly) moderate what photos get tagged as being 'you' - but let's face it (sorry), that's kind of the main point of Facebook, to be able to tag photos for people, isn't it? And as for controlling the profile, I can't help but think that once the software has a really good idea who you are, and if people follow the 'get 2 facebooks, one for your online identity and one for your professional/real life identity' - it wouldn't take genius software to make the match and then the game is up.

What worries me is that Facebook is in a prime position to do the same as Gracenote once did with user-entered CDDB data and sell access to it to whomever wants to use it?

Thoughts? So am I just being uber-paranoid? Is it too late already, and I should just shrug my shoulders and get on with it?

Comments

[goetia.livejournal.com]

Being able to tag photos is a very minor feature of facebook, really. Not the main point at all :)

[nairoz.livejournal.com]

I'd argue you are being overly paranoid, currently - although Facebook does go further than most online communities (for lack of a better description) with the tagging etc, it seems to me that largely, people are voluntarily choosing to upload information and pictures themselves, effectively signing away some of their rights to privacy.

Whilst I accept things may well get worse in the future, based on the information people have agreed to share now, I do believe it is a largely overstated concern. Taking your facebook example, I have been tagged in several photos before getting a facebook account (I only got one today), and all that could be seen was my name, and what I look like - there was no link to any further information about me.

Although of course I just assume there's a database somewhere with everything about me in it - so I'd advise just shrugging your shoulders and getting on with it - we're all in the same boat, surely!

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I have been tagged in several photos before getting a facebook account (I only got one today), and all that could be seen was my name, and what I look like - there was no link to any further information about me.

That's because you didn't have an account. From now on when your friends tag you, your name will be a link to your Facebook profile.

[nairoz.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm aware of this - but the information on my Facebook profile is information I've deliberately chosen to share.

As such, if anything does happen with that information that I regret, I've only got myself to blame.

[theeighth.livejournal.com]

I was writing a really long thing here.
But I decided that nah, you're just being paranoid. ^_^

[theeighth.livejournal.com]

's like Sam's post in the other thread where you were paranoid.
People can find you other ways. A friend of mine recently changed her LJ username and bet me that I couldn't find the new one.

OK, so I couldn't find the new one, but I did find the "secret" journal she maintained where she posted slashfiction causing her to die of embarrassment. ^_^ Google is your friend.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think you're being paranoid. You've heard all the stuff about Facebook being funded by the CIA, right?

Actually, I don't think the pictures are the biggest problem; it's all the other information about who your friends are, what you do, how you've been feeling, how much you've been spodding every day.... Photos make it worse, but they aren't the biggest problem - yet.

I consciously decided to abandon any hope of privacy online - because the only way I could get privacy would be to separate all the things I do, and that' would be even worse.

[nemy.livejournal.com]

I dont think your being paranoid.

Just one of those 21st Century hazards I guess.

I dont think I'll ever have a facebook, but thats because I fail to see the use in it. One most always be careful how much information you share with people or more importantly realise that should you wish to have a bigger media profile that people will hunt for stuff about you.

In a sense there is something embarrasing about everyones life in any given arena so you should be mindful of this fact and just be prepared for it.

I agree with oedipamaas49.