Is Digital Privacy an Issue?

Facebook is often harshly criticized for its lax approach to privacy. In fact, the social network was dodging punches in Feb. 2009 for its content licensing — outlined in the Facebook terms of service. Facebook effectively declared, “we can do anything and everything we want with the content you produce.” Since then, the social network has been trying to backpedal.

In December 2009, Mark Zuckerberg announced new privacy settings that allow users to customize who sees what on their Facebook page. The catch? The default setting is public — therefore if you do not change your settings, your digital life is exposed to the world.

Google and Bing jumped into the privacy debate when they announced indexing social media content. Twitter took center stage in the controversy while Facebook stood on the sidelines nervously. What if you didn’t change your privacy settings and Google indexed something that was well… private? Too bad.

The media (including bloggers) started an intense debate about privacy. Rightfully so. When you imagine a person across the world peering into your personal life, it’s creepy. But when it comes down to brass tax, do users really care about privacy?

If anything, Twitter and life-casting is a clear indication that the privacy debate should be fizzling out. Then Mark Zuckerberg brings it back into play by addressing “privacy concerns.” Is it just an over-inflated issue or are consumers truly concerned?

In 2007, the internet security company, Sophos, created a fake Facebook account to test how much information they could extract from users profiles. Under the guise of Freddi Staur (an anagram of “ID Fraudster”), Sophos sent out friend requests to 200 users. The results were shocking:

• 72% of respondents divulged at least one email address
• 84% of respondents listed their full date of birth
• 87% of respondents provided details about their education or workplace
• 78% of respondents listed their current address or location
• 23% of respondents listed their current phone number
• 26% of respondents provided their IM screen name

Recently, Sophos asked the question: “With an additional two years’ worth of well-publicized warnings from security companies, the media, the cops and from Facebook itself, and with Aussies generally backing themselves to be better at almost everything than the English, surely things would show an improvement?” Here is what they found:

“Ten years ago, getting access to this sort of detail would probably have taken a con-artist or an identify thief several weeks, and have required the on-the-spot services of a private investigator,” Sophos writes. So have warnings from the media, cops, security companies and Facebook been heeded by users? The answer is unfortunately, no. While consumers are increasingly opening their lives to the world (think Freddi Staur, Facebook and life-casting platforms like Twitter), is the media out of touch with reality? Share your opinion in the comments section.

Image by Philip MacKenzie from Stock.Xchng

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