"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to ask you why you're getting off Facebook," is the guilty and reluctant question I'm hearing a lot these days. Like we kinda know Facebook is bad, but don't really want to know.
I've been a big Facebook supporter - one of the first users in my social group who championed what a great way it was to stay in touch, way back in 2006. I got my mum and brothers on it, and around 20 other people. I've even taught Facebook marketing in one of the UK's biggest tech education projects, Digital Business Academy. I'm a techie and a marketer -- so I can see the implications -- and until now, they hadn't worried me. I've been pretty dismissive towards people who hesitate with privacy concerns.
Over the holidays, I thought I'd take a few minutes to check on the upcoming privacy policy change, with a cautious "what if" attitude. With our financial and location information on top of everything else, there were some concerning possibilities. Turns out what I suspected already happened 2 years ago! That few minutes turned into a few days of reading. I dismissed a lot of claims that can be explained as technically plausible (or technically lazy), based on a bit of investigation, like the excessive Android app permissions. But there was still a lot left over, and I considered those facts with techniques that I know to be standard practice in data-driven marketing.
With this latest privacy change on January 30th, I'm scared.
Facebook has always been slightly worse than all the other tech companies with dodgy privacy records, but now, it's in it's own league. Getting off isn't just necessary to protect yourself, it's necessary to protect your friends and family too. This could be the point of no return -- but it's not too late to take back control. Full story...
Related posts:
I've been a big Facebook supporter - one of the first users in my social group who championed what a great way it was to stay in touch, way back in 2006. I got my mum and brothers on it, and around 20 other people. I've even taught Facebook marketing in one of the UK's biggest tech education projects, Digital Business Academy. I'm a techie and a marketer -- so I can see the implications -- and until now, they hadn't worried me. I've been pretty dismissive towards people who hesitate with privacy concerns.
Over the holidays, I thought I'd take a few minutes to check on the upcoming privacy policy change, with a cautious "what if" attitude. With our financial and location information on top of everything else, there were some concerning possibilities. Turns out what I suspected already happened 2 years ago! That few minutes turned into a few days of reading. I dismissed a lot of claims that can be explained as technically plausible (or technically lazy), based on a bit of investigation, like the excessive Android app permissions. But there was still a lot left over, and I considered those facts with techniques that I know to be standard practice in data-driven marketing.
With this latest privacy change on January 30th, I'm scared.
Facebook has always been slightly worse than all the other tech companies with dodgy privacy records, but now, it's in it's own league. Getting off isn't just necessary to protect yourself, it's necessary to protect your friends and family too. This could be the point of no return -- but it's not too late to take back control. Full story...
Related posts:
- ‘Facebook a gift to intelligence agencies’ - Laura Poitras
- Delete your Facebook...
- Users slam ‘creepy’ new feature that allows Facebook to listen in...
- Face-recognition software: Is this the end of anonymity for all of us?
- Facebook plans to spread web access with ‘drones, satellites and lasers’
- Mark Zuckerberg is a hypocrite on internet privacy as Facebook is a giant...
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