Posts Tagged: "Privacy Concerns"

Although Facebook originally discussed the use of facial recognition technology in a small blog post on the site back in December, it was listed as unavailable until earlier this month. The social media giant released its new Autotag facial-recognition tool that will allow users to autotag photos of their friends based on what they look like. But what was most odd about this release is that they did so quietly and under the radar with little thought to the risks that could be associated with the tool. Rather than having the ability to opt-in to this new tool, you have to go into your settings and opt-out. With more than 500 million active users, even if you choose not to be tagged in photos, it is inevitable that you and perhaps even your small children are being tagged by others without your knowledge.

You’ve seen it all over the place… Privacy Concerns, Security Issues, Identity Stolen, Dangers of Social Networking, Social Media Threats, Personal Information Sold. All too often Facebook is the culprit; notorious for breaching the confidences of the hundreds of millions of users who have profiles on the ever-popular Social Networking site. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that their own investigations into Facebook uncovered that many of the more popular third party applications being used on Facebook have been providing access of personal information to dozens of advertising companies.

On May 17, 2010, Google, Inc. was sued in the United States Federal District Court for the District of Oregon by Vicki Van Valin and Neil Mertz; the allegations asserting violation of Oregon, Washington and US privacy statutes (18 USC 2511). The original complaint also seeks to certify a class action against Google, who has already admitted that it engaged in inappropriate collecting of private information from unsuspecting Internet users. Google characterizes the privacy violations as a “mistake,” but a recently published US patent application assigned to Google may suggest that there were those within Google who gave considerable consideration to such an invasion of privacy through the use of sniffer or snooping software.

In response to the privacy concerns being raised against Facebook, four United States Senators, Charles Schumer of NY, Michael Bennet of CO, Mark Begich of Alaska and Al Franken of MI, joined forces and on April 27th wrote a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg requesting that Facebook alter its policies on privacy. Currently Facebook information is available on third party websites without user permission. However, the Senators want Facebook to change its provisions so that Facebook user information is kept private and can only be shared with the user’s explicit permission blocking non-Facebook websites from accessing this information.