Facebook Privacy Issue: It’s Really Not THAT Bad
Facebook is all but taking over the web as we know it. Along with their new domination comes changes in their privacy policies, a touchy subject for most Facebook users. Since Facebook has basically allowed open access to user information, many users feel this is unfair, that Facebook is selling out personal information without their consent.
If you don't want Facebook to know your personal information, don't put it on there.
What? That's an absurd thought!
Facebook has positioned themselves rather brilliantly in such a way that frequent internet users almost have to have it to keep in touch with others. When filling out that personal bio information, you don't have to put every detail of your life on there. You don't want Facebook telling advertisers that you like The Great Gatsby, hiking, Star Wars, long walks on the beach or puppies, don't write it up on your profile. Our privacy levels and how much people know about us is really in our control.
We all forget about one key aspect of Facebook: it's free. A lot of social networking platforms are. Since it's the people and users involved in that social network that determine its success, social networks should do their best to cater to the needs of their user base. Facebook has been a great free tool to connect with friends and tell the world more about who we are. However, we don't have any rights to Facebook. The space we are using to communicate isn't our space that we pay for - it's borrowed. When we post things on our profiles, we are posting things on a space owned by someone else, basically giving them rights to do what they want with it. If Mark Zuckerburg wants to sell the information that you like to canoe to a canoe company advertiser, he really has every right to do so. (If Facebook offered paid, premium accounts, this would be a different story).
Privacy is an ideal we all hold onto tightly...theoretically. However, with the advent of Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook status updates, most of us aren't shy on telling the world what we are doing and when we do it. That being said, why the big fuss over the privacy issues on Facebook? I believe their only fault is not doing an adequate job educating the public on what those privacy changes means and how they affect their users.
This article on Mashable does an extremely good job (better than the above) covering this topic. What do you all think?