Have you seen those posts some people have put up on their Facebook (FB) wall in response to sights new privacy policy that is due to go into effect in January that say something like this?
“Due to the fact that Facebook has chosen to involve software that will allow the theft of my personal information…The violation of my privacy is punishable by law (UCC 1-308 1-308 1-103…etc”.
Don’t bother, it won’t make any difference. Over the years, Facebook has slowly expanded its terms and conditions, and last month the company announced that come January 1, 2015 all users will have to agree to new Terms of Service (TOS) or be locked out of the site. Since the social network has roughly 1.32 billion users, that is a BIG deal According to the rumor dispelling website snopes.com “Facebook users cannot retroactively negate any of the privacy or copyright terms they agreed to when they signed up for their accounts, nor can they unilaterally alter or contradict any new privacy or copyright terms instituted by Facebook, simply by posting a contrary legal notice on their Facebook walls.”
The new terms will require users to accept a new location data policy that says you allow Facebook to use your GPS, Bluetooth, and wi-fi signals to track your location.
Many Facebook users won’t even bother reading the new policies; they will just agree to them and will be too apathetic to bother to go into their privacy settings to recalibrate and Facebook will just get richer and more powerful. According to the fine print of these new policies, Facebook basically has the right to use anything you post, or “like” or comment on to further streamline their ad targeting algorithm.
One of my friends recently posted his response to these policies by saying, “I don’t care, I have nothing to hide” Like anyone really cares what he posts about. Facebook doesn’t care what you post, only that they can use it to provide advertisers with more detailed information about what FB users are interested in and therefore target users with more effective advertising.
Attorney Maninder Gill, a partner at London-based law firm Simons, Muirhead & Burton and an expert in intellectual property and privacy law said, “Out of all the TOS I have dealt with in 20 years, Facebook’s are the most intrusive. To be granted rights to track an individual’s movements, and thus the people that would be with those individuals, and to potentially commercially exploit without permission all pictures posted on Facebook without specific consent, is breath-taking.”
And yet many Facebook users won’t even bother reading the new policies; they will just agree to them and will be too apathetic to bother to go into their privacy settings to recalibrate. And Facebook will just get richer and more powerful. According to the fine print of these new policies, Facebook basically has the right to use anything you post, or “like” or comment on to further streamline their ad targeting algorithm.
I have used the Chrome browser for a few years now and after I added a free app extension called “Ad Block” I have not seen more than a handful of ads on my FB page. It also effectively blocks pop-up ads and most every other form of intrusive advertising on every page I visit, including a lot of those annoying You Tube ads.
I am not under the delusion that just because I cannot see the ads then I must be somehow immune to this data-mining. I just don’t have to look at the results. I do plan to check into FB’s new policies when they become active and set them to the least intrusive level possible. I also visited this site, http://www.thefilterbubble.com/10-things-you-can-do and followed the suggestions to opt-out of as many other internet data mines as I could. If you’d like to see how sites like Google use your information, just sign into Google and search a random term. Note what sites pop up in response to your query. Now log out and let a friend sign in to Google and search the same term. They will get a completely different set of suggested sites. This is how websites use your web interaction.
How much of your life are you willing to share with the rest of us? FB will be asking us to do just that next month. Agree to the terms, delete your account, or be blocked. Can you say “Yes sir may I have another?” (Watch National Lampoon’s Animal House to get the joke). Peace.
