Or at least some see it as a problem. Recently I have received a number of invitations to be a friend on Facebook. (Begun 3 years ago, it claims 40 million active users and 200,000 more signing up every day). I have reluctantly declined because I vaguely remembered reading something about privacy issues. Then yesterday I read this article that restates and reinforces the privacy concern.
Facebook plans to escalate its use of personal data to target advertisements to individual users, despite mounting privacy concerns surrounding social networking sites.
. . .Chris Kelly, the chief privacy officer, added: “We have always said that information [submitted by users] may be used to target adverts.” . . . He suggested that internet-users could no longer expect to remain anonymous online, but
could control only the amount of information about them that is available on the web.
Asked about last week’s decision by Facebook to make basic details, including names and photographs, of its users accessible through search engines including Google for the first time, Mr Kelly said that the result would be the internet equivalent of a telephone directory listing and represented no threat to privacy.Keith Reed, of Trend Micro, the internet security group, said: “The concern is the ease with which criminals can find information on the individual which can be used for ID theft.”
Facebook users would be accessible through a search engine only if they did not opt out of the system, Mr Kelly said. One in five Facebook users had altered their privacy settings to reduce their visability, he added.
According to Mr Kelly, Facebook compares favourably with alternative websites, such as blogs, where information is “completely discoverable”. (more)
Update 10/27/07 - Scoop: Facebook Employees Know What Profiles You Look At