Friday, May 21, 2010

The Illusion of Online Privacy

An obsession of privacy is an irrational, futile endeavor.
I find it interesting when people set their Facebook (and other web application) settings to have all sorts of privacy settings. They are creating for themselves an illusion of privacy. In the end, very few things on the web are truly secure, and if someone really wanted to steal your information, they really don't need Facebook to do it. In fact, most of your precious Facebook profile information can be found through a search in a phone book or directory.

To me, setting your Facebook profile sittings is like locking the front door of your roofless house. Sure, the casual observer wont be able to get into your house, but when someone really wants to steal your TV, locking the door won't matter. But people want to live in their illusion that what they put on Facebook cannot be found elsewhere. Sure, photos and stuff probably won't be elsewhere, but what exactly are you protecting, and why are you protecting it?



The REAL Facebook Controversy

Most of the people with opinions worth anything know that the real issue in this Facebook privacy controversy is NOT that it is now "less secure" but that Facebook dramatically changed their privacy policy 1) without really notifying users and 2) making it very difficult to change back to the original settings. These are the true questions that Facebook has to answer, not about why privacy sucks, because the truth is, privacy sucks in almost every application available.

Why does no one have an issue with Twitter? Is it because privacy is emphasized by Twitter? Of course not! Nobody complains about Twitter because they don't expect it to be private. When you use Twitter, you have a certain expectation of lack of privacy. This also applies to Blogger. People aren't furious that when they create a profile it's viewable by the entire internet. The issue for Facebook is this: they changed, and nobody knew it.

Random funny photo:

Phillies runner Tazed

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