We all have been in love with Facebook for the many features it provides its users with, a vast opportunity for developers to leverage it platform for apps, etc. And while that wasn’t enough it has grown into an equally massive marketing platform for brands and even tourism for countries. But to be honest many actually have loved it more for the very private network it has been over time. Is it really the reason or at least one of the major reasons why it has been loved?
For me, a definite yes and I might have many agreeing with this. I mean why would people fight over privacy issues if its privacy was not their major concern? We have seen it over time that whenever there has been an alteration in privacy settings of the network. And the same is going to repeated if Facebook does proceed with its action to introduce more changes to privacy, the latest of the moves appears to be pretty mind boggling to begin with.
Apparently news rolled out earlier that the social network is set to make a few changes at the upcoming f8 conference. The privacy settings will be seeing yet another tailoring and the worst part is that this time the social network is or might share user data with third party applications and sites. Some of these, you wont be a part of. Scary, very scary and downright dictatorial, what exactly is the social network planning to achieve here? A miniature default model of Facebook Connect that will keep you connected to or share part of your information with third party sites/applications? I would like to share a part of the blog post from Facebook:
Today, when you use applications such as games on Facebook.com or choose to connect to Facebook on sites across the web, you are able to find and interact with your friends. These applications require a small set of basic information about you in order to provide a relevant experience. After feedback from many of you, we announced in August that we were moving toward a model that gives you clearer controls over what data is shared with applications and websites when you choose to use them.
Now I agree with the part that says it wants to make user experience on these sites better and more relevant. But is this what every user wants? If this is to happen, these third parties might have full access to anything on your Facebook profile that you is accessible for everyone. As for the third parties reading the cookies, well I for one would never really desire that for now and I can bet the same sort of reaction will come from many users who still haven’t calmed over the last changes it introduced.
What I personally think should be done is that Facebook should be more democratic. By that I mean it should enable users to decide if they really want to get ahead with the new options/features. This would avoid all nuisance that these changes made default cause and would eventually have almost everyone using these over time.
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[...] It appears that the Goliath of the Social Media is getting caught in some undesirable issues. It has already been setting itself to quite an uprising with the upcoming changes to its privacy settings before long reports hurled in stating that the social network had exposed their email IDs to the public. Isn’t it what the social network actually intends to do? When it enables user data to be shared by third party sites? [...]