Read Write Web published a guest post by me about how the changes at facebook last week leave us Socially Nude.
Facebook's Privacy Move Violates Contract With Users
Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable.
This represents just the latest instance of Facebook violating the contract it holds with its users. This is no small matter, either. Lots of people will have very real and valid objections to this arbitrary change to what's public and what's private on Facebook.
....an articulation of the nature of the social contract sites with social features have with users....
I wonder how many more times they will get strip us down, leaving our familiar social clothes and underware on the floor, and leaving us socially nude.
I think it is unethical and I agree with the concern that Jason Calacanis raises about how this will affect other Internet companies. "Facebook's reckless behavior is... simultaneously making users distrust the Internet and bringing the attention of regulators." This change will affect all of us working on building the new techno-social architecture of our society via the web.
Related posts:
Unconference.net
Only if you accepted Facebook's defaults when they popped up their ridiculous recommendations the second time they made mention of the privacy changes when you logged in. I said no thanks and went in and actually tightened up my permissions to be even less permissive than I had previously configured them.
Read the terms and conditions in order to find out if there was a change in the terms and conditions recently. what they have done is similar to taking your contacts in your phone and sharing them with everyone else on there and from what i can tell they didn't give a clear and precise warning about this or an option out i believe this to be a major breach of the Data Protection Act here in the UK. from terms and conditions
"You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:..." now if that wouldn't hold up in court, i'm not sure what would. facebook sold our private lives without asking... this is no different than stealing..
I had no idea Facebook was doing this. Thanks for the heads up! I'll go mess around with my settings now.
Socializing online or offline may not be as difficult as it appears first. Traditionally speaking the primal fear of contacting a stranger should not be considered as the sole reason as to why people are shy to make new friends. Similarly; socializing with new people will aid in developing social skills that may help lead to a more fulfilling live.
You can just change your privacy settings back to fully private. It takes two seconds. What's the big deal?
Thanks for the great info. Its amazing how often the very companies we trust violate our privacy. If only we knew about it every time...
Social networking is a great idea to connect people and find new friends all over the wold. But I think we should give the www not too much informations about us.