Facebook Offers Privacy Checkup to All 1.28 Billion Users

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/technology/facebook-offers-privacy-checkup-to-all-1-28-billion-users.html

by taylorbuley • 12 years ago

42 26 12 years ago

mobile.nytimes.com

Havoc2• 12 years ago

So where is the "do not share with advertisers option"? All these fine grained controls over which friends to share what with is really not what I need...

jnorthrop• 12 years ago

It is always important to keep in mind that Facebook (et al) does not sell your personal information, the sell access to a generalized profile. Now, that may still make some people uncomfortable, but it is not in Facebook's best interest to identify individual users to advertisers and not only would that be illegal (in violation of their policies) but it is not a sustainable business model. They want you and these advertisers to keep coming back.

chimeracoder• 12 years ago

It is always important to keep in mind that Facebook (et al) does not sell your personal information, the sell access to a generalized profile.

I don't know if they reversed this policy, but last I heard, if I "liked" Coke on Facebook, they would use my name and photograph when advertising Coke to my friends.

That's not directly selling data to advertisers, but for me, it's just as objectionable. "Liking" a page and endorsing usage of my name for advertising that page to my friends or publicly are two very different things.

us0r• 12 years ago

I never understood this argument of "selling your information" to advertisers. As far as I'm aware they allow advertisers to target demographics. What company that sells advertising does not?

beagle3• 12 years ago

Don't know if this is still the case, but it used to be possible to target one specific individual (yegg wrote http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/05/a-fb-ad-targeted... about it), and it was possible to cross reference this with other RTB venues (e.g., adnexus) - so that, while they didn't give out your details - if you were targeting someone specific, you'd actually get to see a significant part of their web traffic (everything that had ads through those RTB venues).

It all boils down to what you mean by "identify" - if you include "complete name, address, age, etc." - then, no, FB doesn't directly identify you. But if you mean "know whenever that same user does anything else anywhere", then - yes, they do let the advertisers identify you.

theklub• 12 years ago

That one is easy, its called "don't use Facebook"...

balladeer3• 12 years ago

Really. Users want all the bells and whistles of a cutting edge social network and want the money to come from Red Cross. The solution is actually not to use it or use it sparingly. Just keep an account to get in touch with friends. Mine doesn't even have a mobile number or my primary email address, or even a photo. No post or edit in last 7 months.

Havoc2• 12 years ago

That one is easy, its called "don't use Facebook"...

I ended up going for a hybrid approach. People kept bugging me about creating a FB profile. So I did. Its pretty much blank & linked to my gmail...so people can reach out to me if they want but I don't actively participate in a meaningful manner.

lucb1e• 12 years ago

Do you know who can see what you are posting on Facebook, including your photos, birthday and personal cellphone number?
Chances are that you don’t.

Wrong guess. Chances are that I perfectly know that I have set everything to public so that I force myself to think about what I post.

Because if I don't friend someone now, it does not mean that I might not friend them in the future just because they're family of my sister's future husband or whatever. Or the famous "friends of friends" share option that basically includes everyone on my continent.

whoismua• 12 years ago

My guess is that most people will just close the window and FB can claim to care about privacy (...as much as McD's cares about your cholesterol)

merrua• 12 years ago

Did anyone else laugh when they read this headline?

MadManE• 12 years ago

It strikes me as odd that this is considered a legitimate offer by some (most?) people. The whole existence of FaceBook is dependent on collecting data from people - why would they offer to check privacy unless it was an attempt to collect more data?

Facebook Offers Privacy Checkup to All 1.28 Billion Users

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