.....................It's like this Blog. If you think my name is Becker guess again. It is a 'handle' or phone ID if you will. It does identify me somewhat. I picked the Becker moniker from the title character of a TV program. The character was always for the common man and objecting to certain political ideology...and pinching pennies so that fit me in several ways.
Growing up watching the information age develop I became aware very early on the problem of too much personal information being out there that anybody could access. I was called to the top office a couple times some twenty or more years ago because I would not put my social security number on a form. I told them they had my number on file from back when they hired me and since the paperwork was going to the central office they could add it in over there. I was not about to let every Tom, Sally and Latishiana see my number. It got to where I would not even put my phone number or birthday on paperwork they wanted. Before I took early retirement it seemed like there were more and more requests like that with more refusals on my part.
I must have been a pioneer with that attitude because they say such requests are few these days. One of the final gotchas they tried to sneak by was a serial numbered form requesting our unbiased personal opinion on number of procedures we used. It turned out the serial number from each form was recorded as to who received it. That way they would know who were the disgruntled employees.
(Underlines, blacked out letters and color added by me)
Facebook and Google exist to make money, by selling advertisers the means to target you with ever greater precision. That explains the endless series of “privacy” headlines, as these unregulated businesses push boundaries to make it easier for paying third parties to access your likes, interests, photos, social connections and purchasing intentions. That’s why Facebook has made it harder for users to understand exactly what they’re giving away — why, for instance, its privacy policy has grown from 1,004 words in 2005 to 5,830 words today (by comparison, as the New York Times has pointed out, the U.S. Constitution is 4,543). Founder Mark Zuckerberg once joked dismissively about the “dumb f***s” who “trust me”. I admire the business Zuckerberg’s built; but I don’t trust him.
2) They make it harder to reinvent yourself
“When you’re young, you make mistakes and you do some stupid stuff,” President Obama warned high-school students in Virginia last September. “Be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do will be pulled up later somewhere in your life.” He’s right: anything posted online might come to haunt you permanently, yet all of us need space to grow. As the writer Jaron Lanier said in a recent lecture, if Robert Zimmerman, of small-town Hibbing, Minnesota, had had a Facebook profile, could he really have re-created himself as the New York beatnik Bob Dylan
3) Information you supply for one purpose will invariably be used for another …
Phone up to buy a pizza, and the order-taker’s computer gives her access to your voting record, employment history, library loans — all “just wired into the system” for your convenience. She’ll suggest a tofu pizza as she knows about your 42-inch waist, she’ll add a delivery surcharge because a nearby robbery yesterday puts you in “an orange zone” — and she’ll be on her guard because you’ve checked out the library book Dealing With Depression. This is where the American Council for Civil Liberties sees consumerism going — watch its pizza video online — and it’s not to hard to believe. Already surveys suggest that 35 percent of firms are rejecting applicants because of information found on social networks. What makes you think you can control what happens to your personal data?
4) … and there’s a good chance it will be used against you
Mark Zuckerberg would like to suggest that, in an ever more transparent world, “you have one identity — the days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” That suits his purpose — but in our multi-layered lives it’s just not true. A vindictive ex-partner, or a workplace rival, or a health insurer, or a political opponent, may selectively expose information to your detriment – powerfully re-framing your identity in a way you would consider dishonest.
5) People screw up, and give away more than they realise
To understand how much personal information Facebook users are inadvertently sharing, visit youropenbook.org and search for phrases such as “cheated on my wife” or “my new mobile number is” or “feeling horny“. I’ll bet that most of the people whose intimate details you’ll get to read are unaware that their updates are being shared quite so openly. Have they genuinely given Zuckerberg their informed consent?
6) And besides, why should we let businesses privatize our social discourse?
Some day you should take time to read those 5,830 words: it’s Facebook that owns the rights to do as it pleases with your data, and to sell access to it to whoever is willing to pay. Yes, it’s free to join — but with half a billion of us now using it to connect, it’s worth asking ourselves how far this “social utility” (its own term) is really acting in the best interests of society.
Don’t take my word, Matt — young internet users themselves are increasingly wary of the social networks’ use of their private data. A recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project — a decent sample of some 2,253 Americans — found that 44 percent of Generation Y (aged 18 to 29) now limit their online personal information, compared with 33 percent of internet users between ages 30 to 49. And three-quarters of younger social-networkers have adjusted their privacy settings to limit what they share.
Call me uncool — but that’s a trend I’m happy to share with my friends. In person.
David Rowan is the editor of Wired UK magazine.
The bottom of the page at the link has a number of links giving more detailed information
Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/six-reasons-why-wired-uks-editor-isnt-on-facebook/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29#ixzz0zu4sTZJu
No comments:
Post a Comment