Monday, November 15, 2010

Essay 4, topic

Facebook: Social networking? Or Social Crisis?
Questions to consider:
1.) Does facebook privacy seetings actually protect your privacy?
Answer:  In September 2007, Facebook announced that profiles will become searchable through its new Public Search Listings. people with facebooks can now be searched through google, yahoo. and msn.

2.) can anyone see the pictures and information that you post on facebook?
one of the fun things about the Internet is sharing photos and messages with friends, keep in mind that the Internet is also a public resource. Only post information you are comfortable with anyone seeing—including your parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, even potential employers. It’s not uncommon for companies to run an Internet search of job applicants before they offer them a position. Stories are increasing about people being “weeded out” from a job search due to compromising or ill-advised photos and information found on the Web. Even if you remove photos or information, they can still exist in archive caches or on another person’s computer. Once you post something, it truly is out of your hands.
A second consideration, frequently overlooked, is that information you post on a social networking site may reveal indiscretions and worse to future employers, college professors, or even your parents. It’s on the record that students have been suspended and expelled for escapades and threats posted online. In some instances, potential job offers have been withdrawn because of information posted on a social networking site. http://www.utexas.edu/its/secure/articles/social_networking.php
3.) is "tagging" your friends in pictures really safe?

4.) what does data mining do?
third party applications on Facebook are stealing information from users. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, applications including FarmVille, Texas Hold ‘em and FrontierVille are providing users’ names, and in some cases their friends’ names, to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies.
These actions apparently has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online, the Journal reported. Using sophisticated software, these tracking companies can determine by your online behavior what movies you watch, what brand of clothes you wear, and a lot of other information you might not want others to know. Companies crave this data. They use to target sales pitches to specific consumers. http://www.pr101.biz/pr-101-weekly-rant-36-what-data-mining-companies-are-doing-is-a-much-more-dangerous-than-most-people-realize/


Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-to-delete-your-facebook-account-2010-5#ixzz161gcAlQz

2 comments:

  1. got any more of an idea than that? what is your position and how are you going to demonstrate it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is an interesting topic, and I think just about anyone in our generation can relate to it in a way because just about everyone haves a social network now days

    ReplyDelete