#ict108

The text below is my essay submission for ICT108 - Introduction to Multimedia & The Internet. The essay addresses the following request: "Describe the issues surrounding privacy in social networking sites, and comment on how this may impact on the future of these sites.".

Usual disclaimers apply. Views expressed here do not represent those of my various employers, this essay remains the intellectual property of Matthew Jones (www.proceduralcreativity.com) and may not be reproduced without express written permission from the author.

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The availability of personal information on social networking sites has given rise to a number of privacy related issues including an increase in cybercrime, passing of data to third parties and blurring the distinction between individuals personal and work lives. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace need to adapt and change as these issues come to light in order to remain sustainable as businesses.

There can be little doubt that online Social Networking has become part and parcel of Internet users' lives. For the week ending March 13 2010, Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United Sates (Dougherty, H. 2010), with a membership of over 400 million active users. A recent study by Network Box showed that more business traffic goes to Facebook than to any other Internet site - clocking in at 6.8% of all business Internet traffic (Nizam. 2010). 

Recent studies by Webroot (a leading provider of Internet security software) show some concerning results when it comes to how privacy of personal data is handled by users of these sites. 61% of users include their birthday on their public profile, 52% include their hometown and 81% do not place any restrictions on who can view their recent activity (PR Newswire, 2010) - which often includes location based information generated by popular applications such as FourSquare, which updates a user's social networking sites based on "checking in" to locations based on GPS information from their mobile phone.

Cybercriminals are showing an increasing awareness of the vulnerability of the medium and how easy it is to obtain a user's personal data - according to Consumer Reports, "nine percent of social network users experienced some form of abuse within the past year, such as malware infections, scams, identity theft or harassment" (Woollacott, E. 2010) To date, phishing scams (where a users' password or credit card details are requested by an unauthorised third party) are still commonplace on the major social networking sites (Khizer. 2010).

Over the past twelve months, government bodies have started raising concerns about how users' personal data is handled by social networking sites. Canada's Privacy Commissioner conducted an investigation into Facebook's privacy policies and practices in late 2009, showing particular concern for "the risks posed by the over-sharing of personal information with third-party developers of [...] games and quizzes" (Internet Weekly News, 2009) - installing an application gave the developer near unrestricted access to users' personal information. In response, Facebook agreed to changes to better educate users on how their personal information will be used and provide options to restrict the flow of information to applications.

Another privacy concern for users of social networking sites comes in the way these sites typically generate revenue - advertising. One of the advantages that social networks have over traditional web-based advertising models is access to a user's likes, dislikes, marital status, gender and even their sexuality in some instances. This allows advertising to be delivered to a specific target market, raising questions of the ethical implications of on-selling data to third parties.

Facebook in particular seems to have adapted to these concerns after a shaky start with their original advertising model, entitled "Beacon". Beacon was activated on November 6th, 2007 without the consent of users and without the ability for users to opt out. Beacon published certain activities that users performed on partner sites (including video retailer Blockbuster, international travel agency STA Travel and popular blogging site Livejournal) to a user's news feed (Facebook. 2007). Due to user outcry and a class action lawsuit (Vijayan, J. 2008), Beacon went through several revisions including the addition of "opting out" of the program (Zuckerberg, M. 2007), before being shut down on September 21st, 2009. Facebook reached a settlement in regards to the lawsuit, paying USD 9.5 million into a settlement fund. (McCarthy, C. 2009)

At the present time Facebook's advertising methodology does not reveal any personal information to the advertiser without the express consent of the user, it merely ensures that the paid advertising material is displayed on the pages of users that the paying company wishes to target (Facebook. 2010). Demographic information on who the ads are delivered to (and who clicks on them) is made available to the advertiser in the form of metadata at a macro level - the advertiser cannot "drill down" through the data to individual accounts, only getting a summary of the campaign as a whole.

A third privacy concern for those making use of social networking sites comes in the form of blurring the lines between work and personal space. Before the advent of social networking sites, it was relatively easy for a person to create a clear distinction between their work life and their personal life. In recent years, a number of cases where individuals have met with difficulty in their working environment due to information posted on social networking sites has surfaced.

In November 2008, airline Virgin Atlantic sacked 13 of its cabin staff after they criticised the airline and some of its passengers on Facebook (The Age. 2008). In that same month an Australian restaurant owner used Facebook to track down five young diners who left his restaurant without paying their bill. After finding that two of these individuals worked for another local restaurant, he contacted the other owner who later called and stated that the two individuals had been sacked as a result. (The Age. 2008)

While in both cases a reasonable individual would likely agree that the employees behaviour was reprehensible (and in the case of Virgin Atlantic staff, likely a breach of company policy), the actions of the employer in the second case raise ethical questions - what right does an individual have to contact another's employer to complain about conduct that did not take place in the workplace and had yet to be taken to trial? Without this information being present on a social networking site, it is less likely that these individuals would have lost their jobs due to actions taken in their private lives.

Social networking sites often have clauses in their terms and conditions prohibiting the use of information on the site by employers, but as the cases above show these terms and conditions are easily ignored.

As more of these cases come to light in terms of cybercrime, breaches of privacy by owners of social networking sites and ethically questionable use of sites by employers, it is likely that users will become more savvy about protecting their personal information - or not publishing it at all - and if users share less information, the potential revenue extractable from this information through advertising decreases, calling the longer term sustainability of these sites into question unless they continue to adapt and cater to the privacy needs of individual users.

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A list of works cited in this essay can be found below:

Dougherty, Heather. "Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Dougherty - North America." Hitwise Intelligence - Analyst Weblogs. http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2010/03/facebook_reaches_top_ranking_i.html (accessed May 5, 2010). Facebook. "Facebook | Advertising." Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/advertising/ (accessed May 5, 2010). Facebook. "Facebook Press Room | Leading Websites Offer Facebook Beacon for Social Distribution ." Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/press/releases.php?p=9166 (accessed May 5, 2010). Internet Weekly News. "Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada; Facebook agrees to address Privacy Commissioner's concerns." Internet Weekly News (Atlanta), September 7, 2009. http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/ (accessed May 5, 2010). Khizer. "New Facebook Email Virus can Steal Passwords." Sizlopedia. http://www.sizlopedia.com/2010/03/18/facebook-email-virus-steal-passwords/ (accessed May 5, 2010). McCarthy, Caroline. "Facebook notifies members about Beacon settlement." Technology News - CNET News. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10409034-36.html (accessed May 5, 2010). Nizam. "6.8% Of All Business Internet Traffic Goes To Facebook ." OMGzam: Online Media Gazette. http://omgzam.com/6-8-of-all-business-internet-traffic-goes-to-facebook/ (accessed May 5, 2010).

PR Newswire. "Webroot Research: One Year Later, Social Networkers Are Savvier About Keeping Information Private, But Still Take Risks; Second Annual Survey Shows 37 Percent More Users Block Strangers From Viewing Their Profiles Through A Google Search, Yet 81 Percent A." PR Newswire (New York ), March 30, 2010. http://www.proquest.co.uk/en-UK/ (accessed May 5, 2010). The Age. "Facebook sleuth tracks down non-paying customers - web - Technology." The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/web/facebook-sleuth-tracks-down-nonpaying-customers/2008/11/28/1227491791062.html (accessed May 5, 2010).

The Age. "Virgin Atlantic sacks staff over Facebook comments - News - Travel." The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/virgin-loses-it-over-crews-facebook-slurs/2008/11/03/1225560692068.html (accessed May 5, 2010). Vijayan, Jaikumar. "Blockbuster sued over Facebook Beacon information sharing - Computerworld." Computerworld - IT news, features, blogs, tech reviews, career advice. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9078938/Blockbuster_sued_over_Facebook_Beacon_information_sharing?taxonomyId=146&taxonomyName=standards_and_legal_issues (accessed May 5, 2010). Woollacott, Emma. "Most social network users court cybercrime, says report." TG Daily | Technology, Science, Entertainment, and Business News. http://www.tgdaily.com/security-features/49619-most-social-network-users-court-cybercrime-says-report (accessed May 5, 2010).