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Tag Archives: Privacy
How Do Sites “Follow” You?
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112769/like-button-follows-users-wsj
In an article provided by The Wall Street Journal, it stated that some social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as Google use widgets to “follow” you, or see what sites you’ve visited online. In the study from the article it said that Facebook would be able to do this through it’s “like” button and that Twitter does through various tweets. What happens is when a person logs on a social media site, and are browsing the internet, even if the person does not press the “like” button to share their information with their friends, the media site are still able to collect that information and find out what you’ve been viewing. Apparently, it is able to collect all this information as long as you are logged on to their sites. Even if you shut down your computer, the site is still collecting data. It does not stop until you log off that particular site.
The article went on about how the sites are taking all this information without people really even knowing that it is being taken. In the article it said “our reading habits online encompass everything we’re thinking about, political and religious views, health and relationship problems…do you want to have an invisible person peering over your shoulder as you walk through the library?” Even with this article informing it’s readers about what’s going on, what I found really interesting about this article were some of the responses the readers had to the article. While some people said that in doing this, sites were ”invading people’s privacy” others talked about how even with knowing all this, it just didn’t bother them. While some people considered this a situation that even George Orwell could not imagine with the “Big Brother” state, others claimed that either they did not feel information being leaked out about them to others was that important or that these kinds of things are just something people have to get use to in this age.
I guess its all just a matter of a person’s personal preference. How much would it bother a particular person that their information and what they are privately doing or looking up ends up in the hands of some company. For some, not so much, the feeling that I’m not that important compared to the other millions or for others it’s a matter of knowing that someone is prying onto your life, without you knowing or without your permission.
‘Do Not Track’ Me
I found an article in self magazine about the same old story of some aspect of someones life ruined from what was on their facebook. A women was on a disability leave after a diagnosis of depression. Her doctor’s had recommended that she go on trips and have nights out. She then posted pictures of her trips and nights out on her facebook. Her disability insurance ended up dropping her. The article also talks of a case about two teenagers who suffered from an eating disorder. They had to provide their online posts as evidence to prove whether or not their illness was biological or emotional and therefor covered or not covered by their insurer. What you put on the Internet could be held against you in the courts apparently. This leads to the idea of information collection. Should companies, potential employer and even advertisers be allowed to access what you post on your personal page?
The New York Tims recently reported news of the Do Not Track Online Act of 2011. The Senator of West Virgina claims “Consumers have a right to know when and how their personal and sensitive information is being used online-and most importantly to be able to say ‘no thanks’ when companies seek to gather that information without their approval.”
Recently various Internet browsers such as Google, Mozilla and Microsoft have created a privacy feature for users to opt out of their personal data being collected. With this feature Third party advertisers would be sent a signal that a users does not want to be contacted. As for collection of other sensitive information such as religious affiliation or medical condition, “the Commercial Privacy Bill of Right Act of 2011 required users to opt in…but did not call for a do not track mechanism.”
If any of the companies violate this law, the Federal Trade Commission would be able to pursue action against that company. This Act is in the process of being proposed to congress. It will interesting to see how this Do Not Track Online Act will pan out and affect the future of information collection.
Harsh Reality or Overkill?
In Old Saybrook Connecticut, a high school ran an internet safety assembly.
Yet many students felt violated and that the school had infringed on their privacy. The school used photos, tweets and status updates from freshman that were required to attend the assembly.
The school found these items because students had no idea how to protect their privacy, which is something that we have spoken about in class often. Debating the idea of protecting our Internet privacy and younger generations living in a world where everything is sharable.
The principle of the school insists “say the purpose of the assembly was to make students aware of how public their “tweets,” photos and profiles are online if their privacy settings aren’t strict enough”. The school used photos and other items that were publically accessible.
I think the students that are outraged should be learning a lesson and understanding that it is not only their friends who can access their internet personas but parents, teachers, etc. I believe the school taught its lesson on privacy in a really effective way, by showing the lack of it that so many students have.
Your facebook acount settings maybe private is it really?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBZrynmd7cU
Social Websites such as face book, twitter, my space allows you to create a user name and password to help keep profiles private where you the account holder is the only person that has access to the account. But in realty it is also known that once you post information on your profile it is considered no longer private because it has become part of the cyber world known as the internet.
Have you ever recalled logging into your face book account and you see links such as http://lilbituly/0sssz2 and dont know who sent it. These sites are known as fishing sites. These sites should not be clicked on because they are used by hackers to fish your password by redirecting you to a ‘look alike’ face book log in homepage that requires you to enter your user name and password.
Once the information is entered on the ‘look alike’ homepage it is sent directly to the hackers account where they can review your information with the use of your password. Shocking right? it is also known that you should never have the same password for your email and face book accounts because this only makes it easier for your information to be retrieved.
To sign up for face book and any other social site is free but the information you provide is owned by the social site. this reminds me of Josh Harris project where he said everything is free except for the videos he captures, he owns.
Posted in Assignment 3, Uncategorized
Tagged Josh Harris, Privacy, Social Media
Comments Off on Your facebook acount settings maybe private is it really?
Facebook = The New Josh Harris?
After watching the 2009 documentary We Live in Public in class, I’ve been trying to be more wary of my privacy settings on various social media outlets. You could probably say I have some weird form of techie OCD when it comes to Facebook; about once a week, I check my privacy settings and friend lists (along with profile and photo album visibility regarding said lists) just to make sure everyone is seeing what I want them to see. On this particular day of appeasing my techie OCD, I came across a strange discovery.
If you have a Facebook account, do the following and tell me you don’t feel like Mark Zuckerberg (*cough* Josh Harris *cough*) is hoarding your internet activity to use at a later time. Go to:
Facebook > Account > Account Settings > Download Your Information (Learn More)
Granted, I wasn’t surprised that Facebook had just weaseled this option in there without any sort of warning or notification (it’s about as common as waking up and seeing your profile layout completely changed for the fifth time), but you have to admit, the idea that Facebook has every wall post, photo album, video, friend on your list, note, event listing, and message thread neatly converted into .html format and then compressed into a huge .zip file is a little strange, to say the least.
After I told Facebook that I wanted to download my information, it took almost a whole day to receive a confirmation e-mail with the link to download MY OWN INFORMATION.
Granted, although it creeped me out a little bit to see everything organized like that, I was actually relieved that this folder didn’t also include everything I had ever posted or written on other people’s profiles. However, you know that the instant someone decides to download their information, any comment or post I had put on their profile will be saved forever for them to see.
After raising an eyebrow at Facebook for 40 minutes as I downloaded my internet life in a .zip file, I began to wonder, “What would make Facebook want to do this?” Other than the rare occasion that eeeeeevery single server for Facebook crashes beyond repair and people lose their files forever, I have a very strange feeling that one day we’re going to have the choice (or necessity) to buy this seemingly useless collection of data.
Posted in Assignment 1
Tagged Facebook, Josh Harris, Privacy, Surveillance, We Live in Public
1 Comment
the dangers of posting too much information on facebook
The dangers of posting too much info on social networks.
The above video shows the dangers of having a facebook account an other social networks. It talks about keeping your private life private,evaluating what you should and should not post on as your status update and how the information requested by social networks can be harmful to your lifestyle. the video to me therefore shows a connection knowing your audience a topic which have discussed in class.
Firstly, the updating of your status should be kept on a level where your personal life remains private.eg updating your status stating Im goin to be home alone for the night or stating the exact date and time of your whereabout for that particular day. It is extremely important not to do this in a case you do not know all of your friends personally on facebook. As Kayla Mitchell stated in the video she has over 400 friends an know them personally this is why she can share here whereabouts an personalize her status updates.
Another issue is the posting of pictures and being tagged in them. The consequencs of posting thes pictures can be extreme at times where many people have lost there jobs from the routine background checks done by employers or even denied a job by an employer because of their pictures being public. It is considered that the only way to have sum control over who see your profile is by costomizing your account to friends only.
Secondly,the information requested by these social networks such as your credit card informatiion, phone number, address should also be kept off facebook because it helps prevent identiity theft. There have been many reports of identity theft victims due to the fact that they provide these social networks with access to their personal infomation. On many times i been on facebooks and there are games such as farmville and yoville which require you to provide credit cards account to buy points to further your level in the game and to my knowledge there are people who do.
In conclusion the video provides you with knowledge of what you should be kept private and what shuld be kept public and also shows connection between our class discussion about ‘knowing your audience’ which should be highly considered while having a social network account.
Posted in Assignment 2
Tagged Facebook, Privacy, Public v. Private
Comments Off on the dangers of posting too much information on facebook
History of Tweets!
http://cac.ophony.org/2010/04/16/archiving-tweets/
I was brought about reading this article for my history class and thought it was very interesting because historians are thinking of archiving every single tweet that is put out for the public to see. Now some may say this sounds ridiculous because there are a number of things people say that are useless. However, if this goes through there will be a large library with tweets stating everyones thoughts,actions and feelings. Though I am not a member of the twitter community, I think that archiving these tweets may in fact some way serve its purpose, whether it be that people in the future can tap into our thoughts that will be history or that perhaps someone tweeting now is saying something that will make them famous when they are older or well after they have passed. With this developing idea there also comes a question of privacy. What happens to those who do not want their thoughts saved for people to see in the future? Does this in fact go against privacy policy? In my opinion I believe that once something on a public service site is opened by an individual it is no longer as private as one may think. You may be able to make it private but for that mili second, who knows your tweet could be saved. It is difficult to establish how people will react to this situation. It is not yet determined whether people have a choice or not whether they can have their tweets saved but we will just have to see when the uproar begins.
“10 Reasons You’ll Never Quit Facebook”
http://bit.ly/bi4FEZ
There are reasons every cause to shut down facebook has a facebook page. Its hard to give up what Facebook offers. The article is pretty messed up, but it has some truth to it. Enjoy.
The things in this slide show says alot about our culture and all the things posted are not set in stone, new things will come things will come that will be able to provide the same services that seem better. Facebook dominance is sometimes over stated. New trends will see light and Facebook will be the company that was phased out by new means of communication.
Facebook Drama
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/11/21/Anti-Facebook-preacher-admitted-affair/UPI-24431290389780/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=facebook+drama
We’ve all heard of the term “Facebook drama”. There is even an entry for “Facebook Drama” on Urban Dictionary in which the drama “encompasses emotional, personal things, including fights, [and] personal opinions”. However, a little over a year ago, a British man, Brian Lewis, took this term to another level by killing his girlfriend, HaleyJones, of 13 years after she changed her Facebook relationship status from “married” to “single”. It started as a small issue between the couple as she was spending more and more time online. Things blew out of proportion after Jones ended the relationship and a week later, she changed her relationship status. Lewis confessed that he became enraged by Haley’s time spent on Facebook and suspicious of an affair. He now faces a lifetime jail sentence.
This article doesn’t apply to everyone’s annoyance with Facebook usage, but it does make a statement of how Facebook can create many problems within relationships. As we discussed in class, people are showcasing their lives to the Facebook community and have the potential of meeting many new people. This can be viewed positively or negatively. I personally know of couples who fight when something surfaces on Facebook. Tagged pictures or a wall post from an ex-girlfriend are usually the causes. There is even a minister in New Jersey who condemns Facebook as “a gateway to adultery” even though he, himself, ironically engaged in group sex in the past.
There is no excuse for Brian Lewis’s behavior, but social media is proving to trigger some insecurity and “Facebook drama” in personal relationships.
