Respecting User Privacy Online

Facebook is a landmine of information. We almost post every bit of our lives on its walls, something which we hadn't begun sharing so zealously until its advent. We trumpet such mundane day to day activities - sitting in office, having dinner with friends... blah.. blah.. blah.. you get the idea - that aren't even worthy of giving any attention in the first place. But the most relevant aspect, aside its addictive nature, is the narcissist tendencies it tries to bring out in each and every one of us (a new Australian research tells the same). I began to realize this so called self-absorption quite early when I was once a very frequent poster of you name it all - quotes, facts and so on. But in the end it was tiring and I felt it was a pointless exercise where I was sharing things to gain likes and comments. And I finally did one thing. I quit Facebook.

The status update tells it all!

I admit things have not been the same as before. Friends find me difficult to contact (email does look antiquated isn't it?) though I have adjusted quite well. But not everybody would like to drop off a social network where they can connect with their long lost childhood buddies, friends and family alike. In today's fast changing world, geographical separation is no barrier for communication, for technology acts as the invisible cord binding us all together.

Facebook, or social media in general, is hence very valuable. However, what we are and what we share and like shouldn't be used as a pointer to generate money. Agreed it is inevitable post its IPO, but making revenues out of every piece of personal information to bombard users with ads and recommendations is not what everyone's gonna like. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that in order "(t)o amp up the effectiveness of its ads, Facebook in recent months has begun allowing marketers to target ads at users based on the email address and phone number they list on their profiles, or based on their surfing habits on other sites."

Amidst news of the social network hitting 1 billion users, reports of alleged privacy breach on the website is a grim reminder of the privacy concerns it poses. That Facebook was scanning private conversations and that private messages were posted publicly on users' timelines have been dismissed as rumors, but it does nothing to quell them. Its labyrinthine privacy control settings are a headache and too arcane for a common user to make sense out of it.

Another point of contention is its Groups feature. It's a known privacy problem that your friends can add you to any groups without your consent. This glaring error was the tipping point for a few who had kept their sexual orientation a secret from their families and friends. An article, again on The Wall Street Journal, shows how their families were devastated when they were added to a discussion group and their sexuality was accidentally revealed on the social network. Admittedly there are three different ways of adding a person to a Group - Open, secret and closed. If the guy who added them had chosen 'secret' instead of 'open', this problem would not have arisen. But again Facebook seems to be doing nothing to educate the people about the various features.

Similar is the case with photos as well. Users currently cannot remove photos of them posted by their friends. But you may think why do I even want to think about removing them? If you are of the opinion that Facebook is only for your family and friends, you are gravely mistaken. These days Facebook profiles are being increasingly scrutinized by potential employers to dig into your personal life before you land a job with them. And in the process, an embarrassing photo of yourself can cost your job.

Similar is the condition of Google as well. Its updated unified privacy policy earlier this year caused much of an uproar and the EU data regulators have finally outlined twelve recommendations, which they say have to be implemented by the company or face legal action, after a nine-month long investigation into its practices. French data privacy regulator CNIL - which led the inquiry - said it had "months" to make changes. The revised policy brought user data, till then present separately in each of their services (like YouTube, Gmail etc.), under one common umbrella thus giving the search giant a powerful data-mining tool for targeted advertising.

According to BBC, Google has been told it should give clearer information about what data is being collected and for what purpose. It has also been told to give users more control over how the information is combined. Some of watchdog's main recommendations include asking for users' consent when combining data from its different products, offering a centralized opt-out tool based on the data collected and limiting user information for security purposes and not for ads. Google is yet to provide a detailed response and still faces a separate EU investigation into its anti-trust practices.

With these companies clamping down fiercely on fake user profiles and insisting on users' to dole out their personal information to create a virtual identity and thus blurring out personal and public life, they need to do more than what they do at present for people to trust and part with their details willingly. We have reached a stage where we rely ourselves fully on these technologies to let them act as our daily drivers. But that shouldn't deter us from understanding the basic premise that it is what we are feeding in is in turn making them 'artificially' intelligent enough to perceive who we are. And it's everyone's right to know how this information is being used to their benefit.