According to Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century writer , society is only possible through the social contract, whereby citizens agree to surrender certain freedoms in exchange for order, peace and a relief from chaos. Where does Facebook fit in this?
Facebook, users are willing to enter into the social networking contract offered by the company. In return for a personal page, ways to find and connect with friends, users are willing to let Facebook make MEGABUCKS by helping marketers advertise to them based on their profile information.
As Facebook's audience grew, so did the company's value to investors and marketers. Based on the information at Facebook's disposal, advertisers could tailor their marketing to smaller and more targeted groups. Instead of advertising on car Websites outside Facebook, marketers could have their messages appear beside only the Facebook profiles belonging to users who said they liked Honda Civics or Ford Mustangs, thereby maximizing the return on their investment.
The problem is, Facebook kept changing the terms of the user contract. Information that wasn't meant to be public became widely available. Default settings were changed so that more information could be shared with the wider Web.
Of course, this was all part of Mr. Zuckerberg's plan to gradually spread Facebook's tentacles across the Web, through new social features and open graphs. The idea was that Facebook would become the default social standard that would blanket the Web.
And now Facebook has decided to simplify its privacy settings.
There is now supposed to be a single page where users can control whether their information can be seen by their friends, friends of friends or everyone on the Web.
At last users will be able to block outside software developers -- the Farmville, hearts, tarot, horoscope etc applications to which you surrender your entire privacy and that of all of your Facebook friends so that you can play their games.
I guess it's just tough luck for those of us who have already surrendered that information..
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, a year ago concluded a 14-month investigation into the site's privacy controls, forcing sweeping changes.even with the changes announced this week. Apparently the Office believes that Facebook is actually more open today than it was then,
Recently some New York college students started taking donations to help fund a project that would develop an open sourced rival to Facebook where users' data would remain private, they raised more than $100,000 in a fewf months. This is a drop in the bucket however and what will become of it? Wait and see.
Will "Quit Facebook Day," an online protest started by a pair of Toronto men, make a difference - of course not - About 25,000 Facebook users pledged to permanently erase their profiles from Facebook's database. Let's see - 450 million or more .... take away 25,000 Do the sums!
If Facebook users are upset about the privacy or lack thereof, why are they still signing up in droves?
Cheers
