Facebook Privacy Issues - Q&A

On Facebook, people share all sorts of private information about themselves: births and deaths, party shots, childhood and school photos, getting engaged, information about illnesses, personal problems and lots more information.

Recently, Facebook faced federal court charges that it had violated the privacy of users by encouraging people to divulge more private information about themselves than they originally committed to when they first signed up to Facebook.

As part of a settlement, independent auditors will be permitted to review Facebook's privacy practices for the last 20 years.

Facebook was also required to get approval from users before changing how the private data of users is handled.

This case leads to questions about why Facebook is so determined to get its users to divulge their private information much more widely beyond what they are prepared to share. How does Facebook use this information and why is it so important for its operation? Should this raise concerns amongst users of the site about the way that Facebook uses their private information?

Why does Facebook push so hard for people to share private things?

Facebook's motto is "connect and share" and sharing amongst friends, acquaintances and families is at the heart of what it is about. Facebook has developed the technology to share in a huge variety of ways photos, links, messages, updates and music. Facebook's modus operandi is based on the concept that people want to share and Facebook is devoted to enhancing the way this sharing can be done. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated recently:

Facebook has always worked on the notion that people sharing private information will attract more and more users and that more and more people with be exposed to their ads. But like Google, the ads on Facebook are highly targeted based on what the site can determine are the users interests. Google stores information about past searches and uses this to deliver highly targeted ads. Facebook can do this in a much better way using all the private information such as country, age, sex, location, hobbies and many other things people share on Facebook. For example, uses who make it clear they have become engaged can be targeted with ads from bridal magazines. Likes and dislikes about games and even soda drinks and fast-foods and be use to trigger relevant ads. Clearly the more detailed private information is available the better and more focused can the ad targeting become. Users are gullible and are more likely to click on ads that are relevant to them, and advertisers will pay more for targeted ads increasing the ad revenue for Facebook.

Does Facebook itself use or sell private information to third parties and how secure is that information?

Facebook claims it does not use private information in its database and browsing habits to develop profiles about users and it does not sell the data to anyone. There are concerns about the ability of third-party apps. For example, your friend may install an app that may have access to your private information, with or without you permission, and even when you do not use the app yourself. Though it's possible to block the sharing of certain parts of your private information, many people don't do this because they don't know how it is done. If they don't use the app themselves they may be totally unaware that the sharing is possible or happening without their permission.

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