The following is a rant. Please proceed with caution.
It’s interesting to me how little memory the internet truly has; we quickly forget the past events that are literally repeated today and find it fascinatingly new as if it hasn’t happened before.
People’s issue with Facebook privacy concerns isn’t as bad as a lot of privacy issues and “leaks” that have happened historically, like a number of AOL’s stupid mistakes.
Apparently we haven’t learned much from the past and we’re still complaining about today and the future. I find that shockingly lame and in very poor taste.
I’m not saying that those that have deleted their Facebook Profiles have done it without wisdom or just cause – they are the wisest of the bunch! I suppose the sad observation for me is that most of the people that I hear complaining probably should have logged off permanently from the internet a long time ago when AOL was still the bomb. I feel like there are just too many “Me Too!” tweets and public whine-a-thons for all of us to read.
Just stop whining people. Technology and privacy has always been a pandora’s box – you chose to use it then and you chose to use it now.
/rantoff
michael krahn says
Also, the whole Google privacy outrage. What’s the big deal?
http://michaelkrahn.com/blog/2010/03/31/flee-the-coming-google-privacy-apocalypse-or-dont/
Daniel Snyder says
Yes, I completely agree. I’ve been unable to comprehend all the whining out there. Aren’t we the people, the ones sharing our information in the first place? Perhaps being more selective about what we share would be wise? Should I click on the facebook ‘like’ button for this post?
Aaron Melton says
There are a few differences in the comparison between Facebook and AOL.
Firstly, the leak of personal information via AOL was a product of their poor (or practically non-existent) security implementation(s).
Secondly, the “leak” of personal information via Facebook is entirely on purpose by Facebook. Users of Facebook are generally not aware that they are not the Customer, they are the Product. The Customer is the advertiser who is purchasing your personal data from Facebook in order to advertise a product or service to you. Facebook does suffer the occasional leak of private information, but in my opinion this hasn’t occurred any more frequently than most other online services. The issue at hand is how Facebook makes it exceedingly difficult for users to protect the information they share with their friends. A better privacy model would be for users to “opt in” to these sort of services than to “opt out.” (Never mind that a few of these updates to privacy settings have had the tendency to reset many user’s profile settings to make them publicly-viewable.)
In short, using a company’s privacy/security-related issues as a benchmark to downplay the poor practices of another company does not excuse the behavior of either. You’ve got a solid rant, though. As for myself, I never used AOL (I preferred the raw Internet experience pre-Netscape days) and I continue to use Facebook on a very limited basis AND I am very cognizant of what data I chose to share.