Wednesday, July 1, 2009

FaceSearch

To continue on with my privacy and FaceBook ranting, today FaceBook announced changes to their privacy policies.
"To get an idea of just how badly this might mess things up, one need only look at the wording for "Transition Tool ... which was shown to the press during the conference call ... The tool's heading invites users to update their privacy settings, which is fair enough given that they're getting totally reworked. But it also says "While updating your new settings, make it easier for friends to connect with you by making a few fields visible to Everyone. Please note that Everyone means everyone on the Internet." That may be intended as a suggestion, but it sure sounds like more of a command. And you can be sure that the millions of Facebook users who have no idea what the implications are of sharing their personal data with Google and the world will be happy to tick off those "Everyone" radio buttons. "
Just goes back to what I ranted about before, never assume privacy on the Internet.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Did you catch the article in that last Wired magazine about Facebook vs. Google? A little sensationalist and i though ta little misleading but a good read.

wortwood said...

I read some of it, but I found it to sensational. I find wired entertaining but most things are over sensationalized and more theory than things that work in practice. The CAT Cue was a great example of that.