Are you worried about your privacy on Facebook? Currently, 85 percent of college students have a Facebook account. Many employers check potential employees' Facebook profiles to get an idea of what kind of people they are. Compromising pictures and comments left by friends can ruin job opportunities and consequently change your life. Many graduates in the job market have learned the hard way that it might be a good idea to put concerns of personal privacy above the social-networking aspect of Facebook.
Facebook has become the poster-child for online privacy issues, especially after the recent decision by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to silently introduce permission for third-party applications to access private information from user accounts. These applications can now access a user's phone number and address if the user has recorded this information in their profile settings, even if it is not made public to everyone. Those users who are not aware of these changes are in jeopardy of having their private information sold to others. According to CBS News, 15 privacy and consumer protection agencies recently filed complaints against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission. These companies stated that Facebook "manipulates privacy settings to make users' personal information available for commercial use."
In addition to selling personal information to third-party companies, some users of the site reported that their private chats were accessible to everyone on their contact list, which makes people wonder if the Facebook chat feature is secure at all. The Early Show on Saturday morning exposed five critical breaches of online privacy: privacy settings changed to default mode after each site redesign (something that happens a few times a year), ads may contain malware, friends can unknowingly make one's online privacy vulnerable and scammers are creating fake profiles for nefarious means. CBS News also reports that a British police agency stated that the number of Facebook-related crimes they have dealt with in the last year has increased by 346 percent. They go on to report that researchers at VeriSign iDefense Security Intelligence Services discovered that a hacker who had illegally obtained access to about 1.5 million Facebook accounts was selling them on the Internet. InsideFacebook.com, a website that analyzes and shares information on the latest news and strategies of Facebook, published an article revealing that Facebook has been pressured by different governments to change its privacy policies after governments feel that Facebook is releasing too much private information. Last year, the Canadian Privacy Commissioner forced Facebook to accommodate certain privacy changes.
Playing Farmville in Tisch Library instead of doing homework is something I am sure a lot of students can relate to. But even the fun quizzes and games that we occupy ourselves with instead of doing homework may leave us susceptible to fraud and identity theft. Although they may seem harmless, in actuality, the applications powering these quizzes are able to gather more information about us, which then may be sold to third-party companies. Facebook wants users to supply more and more information to them, and in return, Facebook sells this information to advertisers. Some users have even gone as far as creating websites dedicated to highlight the shortcomings of Facebook's privacy control.
In response to the distasteful publicity, Facebook stated that it would come out with a feature that would address the privacy issue. The company reported, "We believe there is tremendous value in giving people the freedom and control to take information they put on Facebook with them to other Web sites. We enable people to share this information only after they explicitly authorize individual applications to access it. This system of user permissions was designed in collaboration with a number of privacy experts." Despite this, Facebook is still selling your information to third-party companies. It seems that Facebook is essentially turning into an online phone book.
Hacking is also a huge problem that can jeopardize one's future and online privacy. A common scam, known as a 419 scam, is when someone hacks one of your real friends' accounts, then messages you, claiming to be them, saying they lost their wallet and need some money to be wired over to them. This money ends up in the hackers hands, often in some far away third-world country. I am sure many people have witnessed or even experienced firsthand their own account or that of a friend being hacked into. The hackers often walk away with sometimes sensitive and very personal information, or leave behind embarrassing wall posts on friends' and family members' walls.
The ethical wrong doings of Facebook surrounding the issue of them selling their customers' personal information is profound and should not be overlooked. If governments are requiring that Facebook change its privacy policies, then you, too, should be aware of and concerned about the circumstances that require these policies. The Wall Street Journal reported that "the privacy problems are piling up as the company, which is approaching 500 million users, grapples with how to build new services off all the data provided by users without offending users. The company is focused on ways to turn that vast amount of data into a multi-billion dollar ad-business." Facebook is trying to not offend its users, but in my opinion, any selling of another person's personal information is offensive and ethically wrong. Facebook is a business that is highly lucrative in large part due to selling users information to advertisers. Your personal online privacy is at risk every time you use Facebook. That does not mean one should stop using it, it just means that one should use a privacy application to maximize your privacy.
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Brendan Fadden is a freshman who has not yet declared a major.
