Afraid of what Facebook is up to?Fox News explains how the latest moves by the mega-networking site dramatically decrease the Facebook user's privacy by sharing "personal profile information" with third parties. And this is without that user's permission. In most cases, even without their knowledge.
Right now that data is passed on to selected web sites. But what's next?
University of Minnesota law professor and privacy expert Bill McGevern says it's an important line in the sand. And for Facebook, with 600 million users, the stakes are high. “Facebook is trying over and over to get this shared so Facebook becomes the center of the web,” said McGevern.
Facebook want to make money by selling user information.
If you want to stay on Facebook but want to do at least the minimum to protect your privacy, follow the simple 2 steps provided in this article. And please note -- I thought that I had already taken care of this two weeks ago when the changes were first implemented. I refused to go along by saying "no" and unchecking all the boxes they listed in front of me. Whew. I had escaped.
Except, I hadn't.
Following the process described in the article I found that I was still very much "signed up" for Facebook's sharing program. Again, this was without my permission, without my knowledge, and even despite my best efforts to opt out.
And wait! That still isn't the end of it. Even as I followed the procedure this morning and attempted to uncheck the "instant personalization pilot program" box, Facebook popped out with this message: "Allowing instant personalization will give you a richer experience as you browse the web. If you opt-out, you will have to manually activate these experiences. Please keep in mind that if you opt out, your friends may still share public Facebook information about you to personalize their experience on these partner sites unless you block the application."
You mean I now have to go round to the "partner sites" (unnamed, by the way) and try and figure my way through their "opt out" procedures in order to stop the flow of my personal information into cyberspace?
George Orwell, call your office.
As for me, 1) I've now opted out of the "instant personalization pilot program." 2) I've unchecked every box of "What your friends can share about you through applications and websites" except status updates, website and links. 3) I'm forwarding this post to my Congressman. Facebook has made a few concessions to Congressional pressure already but not nearly enough. And 4) I'm going to keep a much warier eye on Facebook's trickery.
Networking is great. But Facebook's recent changes have made that experience more problematic and, in my experience, far less useful too. So, when you add a propensity to misinform and otherwise manipulate users in the drive to sell information, you've got something downright unwholesome.
Can we still use Facebook even though we know Facebook is using us? I'd like to hope so. But I'm beginning to wonder if the networking experience won't soon be overshadowed by Facebook's dissembling and duplicity.
