The History About Facebooks Data Use

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract

I am deeply interested in the conflicts between Facebook and their clients; I have researched how Facebook’s privacy settings affect Facebook and their clients’ relationship. My research questions are, "Can Facebook clients have a reasonable expectation of privacy on their accounts? What are the consequences to Facebook if they do not respect their client’s privacy?" Facebook’s clients have concerns that people can view their personal information even if their settings are set to private. Users believe they cannot rely or trust Facebook with their information. Clients cannot trust Facebook because they feel Facebook has been sneaky with changing their policies. In this essay, the social and ethical issues covered were policies, privacy, and security. Through this essay, I have examined how Facebook got started, and then what was the conflict about "privacy" Facebook users had with Facebook.

The essay provides examples of Facebook clients’ main concerns such as how is their information used and shared. By looking at Facebook’s Data Use Policy, I will see how the policy might be misleading. To aid me in my research, I made a survey to Facebook users, to see their views and concerns on Facebook policies [1] . In my research, I also made a fake Facebook account. I did this to see if I make all the settings entirely private; can anyone still see or hack into my personal information.

From this research, I have concluded that Facebook has not made enough effort to secure their client’s information. Recently, they have now addressed that clients’ data will be shared with third parties. With the fast growing technology, it is easy for hackers to take clients personal information; therefore Facebook should be more secure with their user’s information.

Word Count: 291

Table of Contents___________________________________________

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………… 1

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Facebook Background Information …………………………………………………. 5

Facebook’s Data Use Policy ……………………………………………………….... 7

Clients’ Issues with the privacy of Facebook …………………………………….... 13

Facebook Isn’t Safe? .……………………………………………………………… 16

What are Facebook’s consequences for violating their own policy? ………………. 17

Can Facebook own clients hack other’s account? …………..…………………...… 18

Possible Solutions …………………………………………………………………...21

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 22

Work Cited …………………………………………………………………………. 23

Appendix ………………………………………………………………………….... 25

Survey Questions ...………………………………………………………… 25

Survey Collated Response Graph ………………………………………….. 26

Fake Facebook Account I Created …………………………………………. 28

Facebook’s Data Use Policy ……………………………………………….. 29

Introduction_______________________________________________

My research question is:

"Can Facebook clients have a reasonable expectation of privacy on their accounts? What are the consequences to Facebook if they do not respect their client’s privacy?"

Social networking is becoming the easiest way to communicate (with friends) around the world. It is rare to find someone who doesn’t know what a social network is [2] or have a Facebook account. When you create a profile on a social network, you are sharing certain information about yourself whereas Facebook and other sites allow you to decide how you want to share it. The problem arises that if you don’t share any information on these sites it will make it hard for your friends to find you, which defeats the purpose of a social network website. So then you are forced to trust social networking sites with personal information.

During my studies of ITGS, we came across the subject "social network" and "privacy concerns." As we studied these topics, I became more interested in them. I wanted to further my studies and find out how this is affecting clients of social networking sites. Through my research I found that social networking isn’t safe for personal information because the sites share your actions with third parties such as advertising companies. Also, hackers can hack into accounts and view personal information which my lead into identity theft or fraud. These are serious crimes people get arrested for. I decided to use Facebook as an example of how social networks do not secure your personal information properly. I decided to make a Facebook account and see if any of my friends will find it easy to hack into my private information.

My research is important because it allows Facebook users to be aware of what they sign up for and not be surprised that certain information and action will be shared. Many Facebook users don’t read the agreement given by Facebook and just sign up obliviously. This can become problems to unknowledgeable people that will face identity theft and scamming. The social and ethical issues related to this problem are therefore policies and privacy.

My essay covers the security and privacy impacts of Facebook on Facebook and their users: whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

Facebook Background_______________________________________________

Figure : Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook

General Background

Facebook was first known as Facemash, which was launched in October 28, 2003 [3] . Mark Zuckerberg and three other classmates, who attended Harvard University at the same time, created Facemash. Then Facemash turned into ‘thefacebook’ in January 2004. This was only available for Harvard student but during this time he was also creating a universal face book that can contact people around his university and others.

Facebook is a social networking site that started in February 2004, which is owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Facebook is the world’s largest social network site with over 955 million active users [4] . Facebook can be accessed from any computer with Internet access and there are many users of Facebook that operates it from their mobile device. Every user must register first then create a personal profile, which contain the users personal information. To sign up for Facebook, you are required to provide information such as your name, email address, birthday and gender. This information will be shared with three parties such as Advertisers, even if you make it private by what your friends share from of you, the advertisers that purchase ads on the site, and the developers that build the games, applications and the websites you use [5] .

"Facebook had launched a high-school version in September 2005. Facebook later then extended membership to employees of several companies, including Apple Inc. and Microsoft" (Wikipedia).

Facebook’s Data Use Policy___________________________________________

On September 23 2009, Facebook made a significant change to its privacy policy. "In June 2009, Facebook was trying this whole democracy thing; letting its clients decide whether or not there should be changes to the agreements between the social-networking site and its users. "Only 30% of Facebook users voted so Facebook decided to pull the plug on that" (Wikipedia). Many users did not know about these changes in the policy. They took out the word "privacy’ and renamed it "data use" policy [6] . The privacy policy was seen as being confusing so they simplified their policy. The policy was changed to actually push users into sharing more information [7] . The changes will eventually reduce the control users have over their personal data. This shows that Facebook’s clients’ information is no longer private, which result in changing the name of the policy. It is now a policy of how your information is used and shared. This is part of Facebook's plan to make a more detailed picture of many users, aiming advertisements well, and using data not only from its own site but recently developed companies such as Instagram [8] . By changing their policy, Facebook will be able to take data from users to targets ads outside of Facebook. This will help Facebook receive money from the companies who own the ads but its Facebook taken this for granted and exploitative overreaching [9] .

In the new modified policy, it is clear that your basic information is public and not private. Facebook states that it will hold this information as long as it believes it is necessary to provide services either on or off Facebook. Facebook has changed profiles into timelines and added a new cover photo, where it states in the document that this cover photo will be viewed publicly and cannot be made private. It also would make it possible for to send your personal information, which you made public to third-party Web sites [10] . Facebook’s other changes are Facebook changing "hateful" content to "hate speech" in describing prohibited content. These changes were made because of new features, for example: "Since the last revision to our Data Use Policy, we launched Facebook Timeline. Therefore, we’re changing "profile" to "timeline" and "post" to "story" throughout the Data Use Policy and including references to features, like cover photos, that work with timeline." [11] Other changes are just clarifications of already stated policies, such as the comments you made on your friends’ status might be seen publicly to friends of your friend. Facebook explains, "We also added some language to illustrate our existing statement that, when you make a comment on someone else’s post, that person – not you – gets to select the audience." [12] 

The Facebook privacy policy once stated, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile." However, the policy was later updated and now states: "We may use information about you that we collect from other Facebook users to supplement your profile (such as when you are tagged in a photo or mentioned in a status update). In such cases we generally give you the ability to remove the content (such as allowing you to remove a photo tag of you) or limit its visibility on your profile." This regards the use of collecting information from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, and instant messaging services, has been removed.

Facebook’s clients have to be more aware of what is occurring on Facebook. Many users are oblivious towards this social networking site’s motives. For the users that are aware, they found the changes to be invasion of privacy because they confined in Facebook to keep their information privacy. Now users feel Facebook betrayed that trust. Many users complain about these changes but not many do anything about. They are so attached to their account that majority of Facebook’s users finds it difficult to delete it [13] . This will became a big deal when Facebook abuse their rights and do devious things without voting on it with the users. By doing this investigation, I am more aware of Facebook change in policy. I feel I might end up deleting my account because Facebook will eventually privacy will not exist.

Now a days, when people sign up for a social network site we don’t read the terms and condition. We just agree to them because we are too lazy to read them. So is it the clients’ fault for trusting Facebook without knowing what the privacy policies are. Can we blame Facebook for not simply reading the policy? Many people stated that the policy was too lengthy to read and felt they didn’t have time to read it. I surveyed 100 people from ages 13-35 to see if they read the Facebook data use policy.

As you can see throw my survey, 50% of the people who owns a Facebook account does not read the policy. The majority of people who didn’t read the policy was ages from 13- 21 and the people who did were ages 25 and up. This shows Facebook issues the policy but doesn’t care if clients don’t understand it or read it. Facebook tried to a democratic way to approach things but when they tried this, many users were on vacation and wasn’t on Facebook. So only 30% of Facebook users voted. They decided not to go along with the democratic approach and go forth with changing the policy.

Facebook can record and access all information you share on Facebook. When people sign up for an account, there should be knowledge of certain things you do on Facebook would be shared, such as with companies, which is stated in the policy. Facebook stated in their policy that they have cookies, which it records what you like so company can target you with their ads. Facebook seem not to state all the ways it use the data but some to keep clients sane. I believe that their client should be oblige to know all the ways their data are being used because it is their data. The privacy policies don’t exist to protect your right and privacy but to explain ways it will be violated [14] . In the policy, Facebook also stated, "you decide what you want to make public or private." Even if you make everything privacy on your settings, some information are still publicize no matter what you do to change it. This shows that Facebook keeps their clients private to an extent because certain information is shared to the third parties such as thing you post, like or even comment on a friend’s status. Others users can still see comments you leave on status updates, photos, links, or videos that your friend shared. Your friend who posted it controls who sees the update and all comments. Any information about you controlled by someone else is out of your hands.

When Facebook tries to defend it’s increasing public privacy settings, they propose it gives its users the ability to change their privacy setting to control information more securely, if they choose to do so. But the reality is that defaults are often determinative.  Many users of Facebook clicked through the new privacy settings without realizing it [15] . It is too many users who aren’t aware what is going on Facebook or just don’t care. So why must people fight for their rights when these users will continue to use Facebook. Through the policy we reveal users’ information isn’t safe with Facebook because they will use to for their own needs.

Clients’ Issues with the privacy of Facebook____________________

Anything you do on Facebook is being tracked. The sense of privacy doesn’t exist. People are being watching by what they do on Facebook. This concerns many of Facebook’s clients because people feel this is an invasion of their privacy; they are not prisoners. Also another thing that concern many clients is it easy for another users to hack into their account with ease. Clients’ need to feel secure using this social networking site but it doesn’t seem like they are. It seem with the improvement of technology, the less privacy exist. But everyone should be aware that once they put something on the Internet, it would always be there. If you are that concern about what Facebook will share about you, make sure you put information you want to be shared. Examining Facebook’s privacies, a question arises, are they follow their own rule or the government. Can hackers easily see their clients’ personal and private information and also see everything they do.

Facebook’s clients are concerned that they are geotagged, Client’s exact location can be picked up and broadcast by Facebook [16] . There is a new feature on the timeline called "Maps", which gathers Meta data and forms the users location. The issue that arises from this is the feature is virtually unavoidable. For those who aren’t care about sharing their current this will be a problem for them. Facebook receive data from your computer, which include your IP address, your location, type of browser you use or the pages you visit. This was stated in the Facebook’s privacy policy. They do this to target ads to you by giving third parties these information.

"Anything you do on Facebook is seen and gathered by Facebook, and creeping on people is no exception."(Hockenson) They track every click you make in order to allow an better experience for the users. Facebook users’ friends can see where you’ve been and how long you been there for. Facebook is seen as a worldwide photo identification database because of all the information it collects and shares for someone to identify the user. This can enable people to do a lot with these kind of information, positive or negative ways. Facebook has off the shelf facial recognition software. It can recognize a picture of its client on any social networking site. This can be a way Facebook shares information of their users with the other social networking site by identifying you. Facebook also collects information from websites that are linked to Facebook. Many users of Facebook didn’t like this because they didn’t want everyone on Facebook to know what they are doing off of Facebook. So many sites created a "Private mode" to block sharing immediately to Facebook [17] .

These problems will surely get worse. The technology will get better; the information that feeds it will grow. Social networking sites are not concerned about your privacy as long they are getting money. The privacy settings of users and their friends can lead to the exposition to harassment, malware, spyware, identity theft, viruses and scams.  "For example, a recent article estimated that out of the 18 million Facebook users who used "apps" of Facebook’s business partners and advertisers, roughly 1.8 million (or 10%) of their computers were infected by these applications."(Kasdan) [18] Â  Majority of these applications access a large amount of personal information without the users even realizing this is what’s happening.

I asked 100 people if they knew about the change in the ‘Data Use Policy’ almost all of them replied saying no as you can see it form the previous graph. Facebook stated that they sent out emails to users that there would be a vote on changing the policies. Which we see that no one knew there were any changes or voting was held. No one knew where to go to vote toward the policy. Many users are concerned that Facebook isn’t being trustworthy towards them. Facebook cannot be trusted. Many people aren’t concern about these issues because they believe they have nothing to hide so it doesn’t worry them.

Facebook Isn’t Safe? ________________________________________

A major problem that has risen on Facebook is many Facebook accounts are being easily hacked.

Hacking has become easy because of the improvement and fast growth of technology [19] . In the investigation, it seem that the hackers are hacking accounts and planting virus that contains hardcore pornography, images of graphic violence and sickening scenes on their profiles. Facebook has a very tight control on what should or shouldn’t be posted on this site seemed powerless to stop the material from flooding user’s newsfeeds [20] .

With the new "timeline" feature, Facebook may be causing the problems. This virus invites users in giving them access to their profiles. It then floods their person accounts with the offensive images. Users’ friend can see these graphic or explicit images on their newsfeed. Users have ben told by their friends on Facebook they have been sending fake requests to click on links to videos and images, have been sending out questionable chat messages, and have been sending mass messages out encouraging users to click on skeptical links. Facebook's software has proven vulnerable to likejacking, which is a malicious technique of tricking users of a website into posting a Facebook status update for a site they did not intentionally mean to "like."

What are Facebook’s consequences for violating their own policy?

It seems like Facebook faces no consequences for their actions. In 2008, Facebook faced a lot off privacy concerns by their clients. Also in 2008, many companies decided to remove their advertising from Facebook because it was being displayed on pages that didn’t seem like their users pages or groups [21] . Many people criticize Facebook for their devious actions and some users and companies tried to sue them multiply times.

In May 31, 2010, many users addressed that they would delete their accounts and quit Facebook due to its privacy concerns. This turned into an online event called Quit Facebook Day. But on this day, only an estimated 2% of users from the United States would delete their account. However, only 33,000 users quit the site. This didn’t seem very success at all, which was taking under consideration that Facebook has over 8 billion users. When criticism arises, Facebook tries and correct what is wrong by rephrasing their polices or making up an excuse to get out of the chaos.

Can Facebook clients hack other’s account?________________

I started by setting up an account with no friends and make all my settings private; only I can see it. Then I asked my friends to see if they can get into my personal information with ease. This would give a better understand if Facebook is reliable with users’ personal information and secure users from hackers or being hacked. I issued a survey to the people I asked to try to hacking into my fake account to see if it is easy to do. This will ensure that Facebook clients’ information is or isn’t safe.

I didn’t want to be bias so I made sure I knew who can operate a computer properly and who couldn’t. I wanted to show that if a person who isn’t computer literate can hack into a Facebook account then Facebook is not protecting their clients at all and their personal information is at risk. Many people told me all they had to do was search, "How to hack a Facebook account" and there are plenty websites that will show them how to do it. People also told me it would be impossible to hack that account because they aren’t friends with this Facebook account. People that were very computer literate said that it would take years to figure out the password through brute force attempts. This is shown to be the most reliable and used way to hack an account without being tracked or traced. It consists of combinations of many password attempts from high to low with all possible combinations, until it reaches the correct password. [22] A major problem with this way of hacking is it will take years because of complex passwords. Another way that was brought up was Keylogging Tools. I didn’t know what this was so I researched it. This is an action performed to trace a certain key typed by a specific person on his keyboard. [23] It is a method to find out what that person is typing without them realizing they are being monitored. "There are uncountable keylogging methods available on Internet, which includes Tools, Software, Applications, Hardware and etc. (Ali)" I surveyed all 100 people again to see if hacking the account was easy or very difficult to them.

As you can see in the graph provided above that the majority of Facebook users couldn’t hack into the account. They found it very difficult to do. This shows that if you don’t know what you are doing it would be difficult to be. But for experts this is just a game to them. As the technology advances, it will be easier for hackers to hijack personal information from users on social networking site and the owners of these sites cannot stop them with ease.

Possible Solution___________________________________________

The Data Protection Act is a government control, and a form of legislation that gives people the right to know what information is kept about them, in order to ensure their personal information is handled properly. In this Act, it states, "Personal information is fairly and lawfully processed: processed for limited purposes; adequate, relevant and not excessive; accurate and up to date; not kept for longer than necessary; processed in the line with rights; secure; and not transferred to other countries without adequate protection." [24] Through this Act, you see it is the role of the government to educate people on how to handle their information that is being stored. This gives people the right to find out what information is being held about them on different computers or websites. People have the right to involve a data collector to remove or block information that isn’t correct about them or seem as a threat. It seem that many people aren’t familiar with this Acts and their rights. But in Facebook, users don’t know actually Facebook is sharing about them, just a description in the ‘Data Use Policy’. Facebook’s users are concern that they cannot know actually what they are sharing with the third party. Facebook states that it shares your information at are public, things you like, comments your write on friend’s status. But is this enough to keep people at ease. With Facebook’s over million users, I think it is safe to say that is. To a more important question, is Facebook breaking the law by exploiting your data.

Conclusion________________________________________________

In my research, I have discovered that Facebook has been sharing their users information without their permission. Even though this has been happening, Facebook’s users refuse to quit Facebook. So Facebook isn’t wrong for sharing their information. Facebook has been caught doing devious acts but their users numbers didn’t decline. Through the ‘Data Use Policy’ I have shown you that Facebook has the right to share users’ information. They need a way to receive money because Facebook is a free social networking site. But many users complained that it was just a brief explanation and not really specified how their information is being seen. There is no reasonable expectation for client’s privacy because it is not secured. As for Facebook, there is no consequence for their action because even if someone sues them they will automatically alter their policy. This will stop people from suing them.

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