Online Privacy

Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites and is actively used by thousands of people across the globe. While people utilize Facebook for different reasons, it basically serves one simple purpose: to connect and maintain relationships with people online. I mean, they literally say that "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life," right on the 'About' page.

It may seem like common knowledge not to post too much of your personal information online, or maybe I have just always been told not to so I think it seems like common sense. Regardless, I think a main reason why people feel so comfortable posting some of their personal information on Facebook is because they have set their privacy settings so that only 'Friends' can see. But just how private is private when it comes to Facebook?

Recently, Facebook has fallen prey to a lot of scrutiny surrounding their privacy policies. According to an article called How Facebook Betrayed Users and Undermined Online Privacy, found on Alternet.org,  "Facebook first aroused controversy on its violations of privacy with its use of web beacons." Web beacons track and collect your online activity and then send all of your information, primarily used so that marketers can directly sell products and services to you.

After this initial privacy conflict, Facebook gave its users the option of blocking these web beacons. The talk of Facebook's privacy settings, or lack there of, settled down for awhile. Then in May, when Facebook underwent multiple changes, their privacy settings became even more limited. Facebook had implemented an Instant Personalization pilot program that "spins users' personal interests into public websites that are searchable and available for the world to see."

Apparently, the only way to get out of this program and ensure that your personal data was not being sent to other websites was to delete a lot of the information that you had already saved to Facebook, such as your biographical information.

I don't think Facebook is evil and trying to corrupt everyone who signs up. But they are a business and because it is the most visited site, marketers are willing to invest in them. In order for it to be free for all of us, Facebook has to allow marketers to advertise to us so that they can get paid. If they don't get paid, we don't use Facebook for free.

I understand that online privacy will always be an issue of controversy and that there are some people in this world who use the wonders of the Internet to their own personal advantage by stealing people's credit card information or whatever it is that hackers do. But, when it comes to online privacy with sites like Facebook, I do not have as much sympathy for people.

People voluntarily sign up for a Facebook account and then voluntarily post whatever information they choose to their pages. If they have issues with Facebook's privacy settings and are not happy with how Facebook is run, why don't they just delete their account? I do believe that Facebook needs to stay on top of their game when it comes to their privacy control settings, but users need to understand that when things get posted online, they become public information.