LinkedBook - or just InYourFace?

A lot of us have come to expect, if not completely accept, that Facebook will farm out their users data to advertisers faster than a crop-crazy Farmville aficionado, given half the chance and a way to slide it into some New and Improved User Preferences. LinkedIn, that quasi-professional counterpart in the major social media arena, has seemed less inclined to stoop to such unprofessional tactics.

Until now.

I don’t much appreciate the irony that only recently did I decide to go ahead and share my one and only photo on Linkedin. Being somewhat camera-shy, I was careful to make sure it was shared only with those already in my network. Granted, anything posted on the intarwebs is out there for all to see if they really know how to find it. That doesn’t mean I want my social networking venue furtively taping my image to the cyber-walls as they see fit for fun and profit (it's bad enough that I just gave people I actually know tacit permission to do so). It doesn’t mean I’m automatically agreeing to be affiliate advertising fodder, either.

Considering that one of the main things people do on LinkedIn is business related networking, the ramifications of having your profile information and/or your photos affiliated (bad pun absolutely intended) with advertising you may or may not want to endorse - or you may or may not even feel is appropriate - are potentially more than simply annoying or embarrassing. LinkedIn promises you'll be connected to ads "related" to content you have publicly endorsed. The problem is, the term "related" is open to a lot of interpretation, and the further down the chain it goes, the more (mis)interpreted it can get, especially if that interpretation is being done by marketing algorithms. I'm sure we've all gotten search results sprinkled with suggestions that were pretty well removed from what we were actually looking for. I've definitely gotten "You might also like" suggestions that I definitely would NOT want to "like", not even on Facebook. Most certainly not on LinkedIn.

The delivery method leaves a bit to be desired, as well. Opt outs are, IMHO, all too often underhanded tactics used to get people to consent to, or even purchase, services and goods they would otherwise avoid, given full disclosure. I suppose I shouldn't complain. A good part of my income comes from cleaning bloatware off computers where the user wasn't careful enough to opt out of everything but what they intended to install. Still, both from a consumer advocate perspective, and a LinkedIn user perspective, this is one option I couldn't opt out of fast enough.

Before you decide this is yet another privacy-tempest-in-a-teapot, you might want to let your imagination run a little wild on how your endorsement of streaming cable TV could ultimately wind up being represented. Some of that late night programming might not be the kind of fare you want paired with a personal photograph...or, then again, it might (and if it is, you probably should at least make sure your photo is "appropriately" flattering...*cough*). Then you can decide if you want to opt out of LinkedIns latest offering - or not.

Update: Attitudes can result in adjustments.

It's nice to know the noble motivation comes back to that ubiquitous excuse of "delivering useful ads" . Personally, I've never yet had an ad delivered that I found useful. I suppose it could happen someday, but I'd still rather not find myself making a surprise appearance in one.

Yeah, privacy's dead when it's this easy to be someone else

I can't help but love this story.  Shoot, I can't help but love this story title:

Dumbfounded: Smart phones breach Facebook security

This is beyond cool. Who cares if you can watch Sunday football through an AT&T coverage map, when what little network they've got will let you seamlessly login to someone else's Facebook account via your smartphone?

"Fortunately, the vulnerability would be of limited use to a hacker interested in pulling off widespread mayhem because the hole would let him access only one account at a time."

I beg to differ. I think the amount of mayhem a creative miscreant could pull off would vary greatly depending on whose account they accessed, not how many. C'mon, people, let's start thinking about quality vs. quantity here. Sarah Palin's Yahoo mail hack pales into insignificance. Zuckerberg's entire personal photo album plastered on Gawker suddenly seems boring. To heck with being ->insert your dream/nightmare here<- for a day - how about an hour? Or even five minutes? Oh, the possibilities!

Four questions immediately spring to my mind:

Is this another Facebook (non)privacy feature giving users exactly what they want?

How soon will Google work this into the Nexus?

Is there an iPhone app for this?

Am I gonna burn for all eternity because my imagination is in overdrive and I've got a serious case of the giggles...?

Facebook's new path to privacy - a call to common sense

A friend of mine asked me recently if I planned to write any fiction. I gave her my standard response: "No, because I couldn't make this stuff up". Seriously, I can't, and I have a pretty active imagination. They say sometimes life just hands you material. I say life always hands you material; you just have to be able to gather it all up. Right now, my basket is overflowing.

First there was the gathering storm of Facebook revamping its privacy controls, which some viewed as a tempest in a teapot. Then came the rollout. Then came the fallout, with cries of outrage ranging far and wide. To prevent this post from becoming nothing more than a collection of linkbait (and it's already hovering dangerously close), if you want a sampling of these cries, just plug "Facebook privacy fiasco" into your favorite search engine and knock yourself out.

The fun, however, was really just beginning. The highlight for many people - I know it was for me - was the revelation that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's own BMOC, apparently didn't understand the new privacy controls himself, and inadvertently left a bunch of less than flattering photos available to friends of friends of friends of casual acquaintances of total strangers, or something like that. This was followed by stout claims that he really meant to do that, although the hypocrisy of these claims is hard to overlook in view of the fact that Zuckerberg's transparency clouded over shortly after it went massively public. I personally also have to question some of the justifications put forth, certainly in the piece I just referenced:

Bottom line: People don't care about the concept (really an illusion) of privacy nearly as much as other people think they do.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they do. Based on the thousands of comments I've seen over the past week, I think I'm right.

I think people do indeed care about their privacy, and more than other people think they do (or at least more than the executives at large internet companies think they do *cough*). What a lot of people don't understand is the difference between the illusion and the reality. In the world of the intarwebs, there is a wide gulf between the two, and for many people "using various Web sites to post personal stuff in a very public way", it is an invisible divide. Out of sight, out of mind. Until something happens which brings the invisible divide into sharp relief.

Among the various opinions being voiced at varying volumes regarding this latest spotlight on the illusion versus the reality of online privacy are calls for action ranging from lynchings to lawsuits. Even the FTC may be getting involved (whether they want to be or not).

What really needs to be happening is a wake up call to common sense. Maybe, with a little luck, that is what's happening, and maybe Facebook is the trumpet sounding (whether they want to be or not). They probably don't want to be the blast that opens a lot of eyes - especially when those eyes are mostly glaring at them with anger - but what's not so good for Facebook could, ultimately, be good for a whole lot of other folks. It certainly will be if it gets a whole lot of folks to finally grok that the "concept" of "privacy" is "really an illusion".

Online privacy is an oxymoron to begin with. I'd like to have that on a bumper sticker. Or a t-shirt. Or both. Anything to help raise awareness that out in cyberspace, the only one who can really safeguard your privacy is YOU.

Might even help a few people avoid getting their insurance canceled.

Facebook's new path to privacy (or not)

Facebook today pushed out its new and improved privacy settings, under the guise of giving users "more control" over their information. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a pretty good rundown of the "good, the bad, and the ugly" here. Another useful commentary can be found at ReadWriteWeb, and as it appears to be a running one it's probably worth watching. For the snarky side of the story, El Reg has a nice sarcastic spin. There's plenty more coverage of this Big Event; these are just a few that topped my own reading list.

At a surface scratching, the good does indeed appear fairly good, but the bad has the potential to be very bad if you don't pay close attention to what you're doing (c'mon, social networking is about getting everyone else to pay close attention to what you're doing), and the ugly, examined closely, looks to give Freddy Krueger a comparative cuteness score of 9.5 on a scale of 10.

First things first though, and since I have a Facebook account myself (against my better judgment), time to get hands on with this Brave New Facebook World.

Okay, so I start by seeing a "Privacy Announcement":

"We're making some changes to give you more control of your information and help you stay connected. We've simplified the Privacy page and added the ability to set privacy on everything you share, from status updates to photos."

Liar, liar, pants on fire!!

With that knee jerk reaction out of the way, I am amused by how they throw giving me more control of my information into the same sentence as helping me stay connected. Facebook is going to make money via the latter, not the former. Ergo, it's the latter I'm going to pay close attention to - that's where their attention is focused, I'm sure.

"At the same time, we're helping everyone find and connect with each other by keeping some information—like your name and profile picture—publicly available."

Ah HA. Now we're talking, or at least they are. Thank you SO much for "helping" everyone, including me, by deciding for me to "keep" some of my information publicly available.

Unfortunately I don't use Facebook often enough to remember exactly what information I had previously decided to NOT keep publicly available, only that I had my settings cranked to paranoid. But that's okay. Facebook knows what's best for me.

"The next step will guide you through choosing your privacy settings. You can learn more about how privacy works here."

Riiiight. Let's see how this "guide" works.


Looks like my Old Settings pretty much run counter to Facebooks recommendations, other than Email Addresses and IM, and Address, which we seem to agree should be shared with Friends. Evidently in Old Settings I had not specified Only Friends, but I'm sure Facebook and I also agree on the difference between the two, and hopefully at some point they'll explain it to me. I trust them, really I do. Not enough, however, to take any of their other recommendations.

I do award them a point for putting an obvious truth in writing, although they fudged the wording ever so slightly. It's still close enough for government work, and a nice bit of CYA.

I changed the email/IM setting anyway, just to see what happened.


Cool, now my email and IM are set to Only friends. I do still have to wonder what separates the new privacy setting of "Friends" from the old privacy setting of "Only Friends". It seems there is a difference, or else why would there even be an option to change it? Facebook doesn't seem inclined to clarify that. Meh, whatever.

DISCLAIMER: The Privacy Settings Screen did NOT say "email and IM screen name" for Only friends can see, nor "EVERYTHING ELSE" for custom settings. That's my own screenshot tweak. If I want my email and IM screen name limited to only friends, I'm not gonna turn around and post 'em here in a screenshot (besides, you can find what info I'm willing to share via this blog in my profile :)). And the finer details of what all I choose to keep private really isn't anybodys business (except mine and Facebooks). If you're that curious, go check your own Facebook Privacy settings. In view of what's going down, you really should do that anyway.

Having made that recommendation, I am both out of time and Facebooked-out, so my own under the hood digging regarding the new and improved privacy settings will have to wait. I've little doubt it will prove...educational.

Oh, that bit of obvious truth that Facebook fudged ever so slightly?

Facebook version:

"Information you choose to share with Everyone is available to everyone on the internet"

Well, like I said, they're close.

Here's the real version:

"Information you choose to share with Everyone is available to everyone on the internet"

Folks, out there on the intarwebs, that is as private as it gets.

Are we having fun yet...?

Did you have fun this weekend? If so, did you post photos of this fun to your Facebook account? And if you did that, did you (hopefully) stop to consider whether those photos could get you into trouble with your significant other, your boss, or your mom? Maybe you think you don't have to worry about that, because your S.O., boss, or mom were with you (so you've got still more photos to ensure they will withhold any judgement), or because the fun was so innocent (or within their definition of innocent) that they wouldn't care. Maybe you don't care, because such opinions have no influence in your life, or because you've locked your Facebook account down so the only people who can see your photos are the friends you've approved (and therefore will presumably approve of you).

If you think no one whose opinion could literally change your life might see your Facebook photos, you're probably wrong.

If you think no one other than the friends you have approved can see your Facebook photos, you're wrong. Period.

And if you think you don't care who sees your Facebook photos, ask yourself if you'd care if your insurance company saw them - and then dropped you.

The story above concerns health insurance, but raises questions about what else insurance companies might find useful out there on the intarwebs. If your fun this weekend was marred by a fender-bender and you took pictures of it, I would strongly suggest you hold off on posting those pictures to your Facebook page...at least until you get those pictures to your auto insurance company, and you are sure of their judgement.

And if you took pictures that could be in any way be construed as you having the remotest bit of fun at the scene of the accident, I would strongly suggest not posting those pictures to your Facebook page at all.

Period.

Facebook: Why I'm even on it

Yes, after so long of scowling, scolding, and even snarling at friends, family, users, and random people I've stopped in the street (okay, I don't do that, at least not that I'm aware of), I have finally gone to the Darkside. Predictably, the response from those who know me has been comparable to catching Jane Fonda on a wild midnight binge at Krispy Kreme. I have also promptly been the recipient of various requests, invites, and gifts (I intend to speak privately to the old friend who offered me a goat - there is a hidden message there, I am sure of it), none of which I have accepted. I do appreciate the spirit in which these communiques are made (sometimes perhaps more than the sender intended), and I certainly don't want to hurt anyones feelings, but that's not why I joined Facebook.

I actually joined Facebook after being reunited with a longtime BFF, who urged me to sign up to see her family photo album. So no, I didn't finally lose it, I got conned by pictures of cute kids. I do have a soft spot here and there (I keep trying to patch them, but duct tape gets expensive). Once I had set foot on Enemy Territory, I figured I might as well do some reconnaissance and get a better feel for this wildly popular phenom that, coincidentally, is often a source of business for hubby 'n me. Anyone who knows what we do for a living ought to stop and think about that for a moment.

Although I don't try to hide the fact that my tinfoil hat may be a little tight, I'm not saying Facebook is going to infest your home computer with a dozen backdoor trojans and browser hijackers hosted by identity-stealing cyber-criminals the minute you sign in. I'm also not saying you're immediately going to get run off the road on the I-264 interchange by distracted, iPhone texting teens in beat up SUVs. However, both of these environments are inherently hazardous.

If you're careful and alert, you CAN safely navigate both Facebook and rush hour traffic. Like just about anything else, a little common sense goes a long way. Me, I can't avoid the interchange no matter how hard I try, so I'll just keep driving defensively with my seatbelt on and my thumb hovering over my horn. At this point I can't completely avoid Facebook either (not without missing out on future cute kid pictures), but like all lanes on Al's Information Superhighway, I'll be driving defensively there as well. ;-)

Facebook: Why I don't answer

Just a quick post here, and a link to a good (IMHO) article on Facebook:

Facebook May Not Be For Everyone

I've gotten a few offers of pets, glitz, and farm animals myself, and I too will appreciate the thought while politely declining to accept.
I don't have time for farming via Facebook anyway; when I do have the rare few minutes of free time to play, I'm working on my mage level in Runescape.  My farming level there ain't bad, either.  ;-)