Where privacy is concerned: Foe.

Of course this doesn’t just apply to Facebook. The Internet in general is not your friend if you want to keep secrets. The problem with secrets (a.k.a. “embarrassing things I’ve said or done”) is that last weeks inappropriate remark is tomorrows secret. Or you might like it to be.

Yes, I know that Facebook has levels of privacy so you can differentiate your BFF’s from your acquaintances. The problem with having these many varying levels of privacy, is that you reach a point where they become cumbersome. And then people don’t use them.

A social network, such as Facebook, relies in the beginning on finding those people that other people listen to. The ones who will hang everything out in the wind without thinking too much. Who have friends (and wannabee friends) who will follow. Once these movers and shakers have grown your network for you, then you can really grow. And people love points: so having a huge amount of followers (sorry, friends) is a badge of honor.

Facebook. Began as being accessible only to Harvard students, then other schools in the area. Then any college. People were fine with that, because they felt comfortable saying things and showing photographs that they felt were being viewed by like-minded people. That is, they were being looked at by current/potential friends, but their parents and Uncle Jim were never going to see how their kids were enjoying student life.

Then came high schools. Still OK, because a lot of the college users still had friends in high school or younger brothers/sisters. Still safe from the “adults”.

But now the students were starting to graduate. So then it was opened to companies, cities, regions.

Now students started to freak out a little: just who was seeing them in their bikini, drunk-as-a-skunk? This was the start of people really locking-down their profile and “you must be a friend to see this persons profile”. Now you could define who saw your email, but not your IM. Who could see your photos, but not your favorite movies.

And then, toward the end of 2006, the developer API and  applications appeared. And what does an application ask you to agree to when you install it?

Allowing {insert name of application} access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work.

After all those privacy controls, suddenly, with one click, you’ve opened the floodgates again.

Remember Facebook’s Beacon project in 2007? Now websites you visited and possibly conducted business with could publish information about the transaction to your page as advertising so your friends could be swayed. The problem for Facebook was that everyone universally hated it; perhaps because they opted everyone in.

Imagine my surprise when one of my friends rented a movie at Blockbuster and this fact (with the name of the movie) appeared on their profile and as a news feed. Imagine how surprised this friend (and the rest of us) would have been if that movie had been something less than PG and possibly indicative of their tastes in porn or a sexual preference. Even if it had not gone that far, we all rent movies that we don’t tell our friends about. This was the thin end of the wedge.

And now, in 2009, we have Facebook Connect. This will permit websites to display peoples information as a “feed” on their pages.

Opinion: the fact that Facebook has been a walled-garden of information is good, not bad.
The whole ‘social networking’ scene is about to go one step too far.

The word ‘social’ itself is being attached to everything, usually by marketing/advertising people, in an attempt to add a level of respectability to products. “Our product is very social and viral…”

Sounds like a description of mono.

Lets return to the concept of ‘secrets’ and widen the conversation to include the Internet in general. I’m talking about how you, as a person, are portrayed. Not just to your friends, but people who are not your friends; perhaps even future employers, or journalists, or voters.

Given that most college students behave in ways that we did ourselves at that age, it is hard to hold most of their behavior against them. So a picture-or-two of someone lying in the street outside a bar is probably not too harmful. But what if every picture you have online somewhere is of you at parties getting drunk? What if you posted them all? What if you are tagged in the corner of someone else's picture of a riot? What if you posted comments to an online forum about a social or political issue? What if that opinion (even if one you no longer hold) is unpopular?

You can understand why colleges would rather their student athletes not participate too deeply in online activities that could come back to haunt them.

More and more, employers are checking applicants on Google. Should they do it? You can’t in Finland. Don’t tell me you have never googled someone! There are many things that you can not ask an applicant: how old? married? kids? An astute employer can often find out things that aren’t on the resume. But not all bad things either. Perhaps you volunteer at their favorite charity, or you are both science fiction buffs. Perhaps something that did not look so impressive on the resume, looks better when you have some background. Lots of stuff. Might make the difference between getting an interview and not.

Even if you find that someone is on MySpace rather than Facebook says something (at least in the US).

Are you confused now? Didn’t I advocate not putting yourself out there? Yes and no.

Take this blog. I’m (unintentionally) giving clues as to my age, martial status, kids, hobbies, skill-set. I’m also giving opinions. True, a future employer might take offence, but on the other hand perhaps having an employee who can string a sentence together would not be a bad thing. Trust me, this is not something you see all that often! (Yes, future blog topic!)

I like chocolate and if I ate too much (… you in the back, sit down and be quiet …) I’d probably be ill. Moderation is the answer.

Am I saying, Don’t be yourself? Am I saying, Use the Internet to advertise yourself? Have you read your resume recently? Is it a true and accurate representation of you and your skills? It is advertising. When your employer actually asks you to do something that you intimated you could do, what happens? (Hopefully, you can do it!) So … is anything about someone exactly as it seems? Who can blame employers from using these resources. You put the information out there, after all.

I’m saying, Be careful. Don’t believe Facebook when they say things.

Recently the fuss was all about Facebook’s terms of service. Most people never read these things, and lets face it, they are not negotiable so what is the point! Email services and photo sharing sites have for a long time had TOS which are not particularly nice. Lawyers write them. I think they are like crossword  or Sudoku puzzles for the legal profession: it is a matter of honor to make them water-tight. OK, that is what we pay them for, but sometimes they just don’t fit what a company wants to actually do.

I don’t know about you, but I am not happy when a company or employer has rules which can be interpreted broadly. Imagine the government enacted a law saying that they reserve the right to demolish your house. They might say that this would only be used when it was in dangerous disrepair. But what if the law did not contain that restriction? Lets face it, laws are interpreted by courts, and if they knock down your house while you are asleep, and the law said they could. Well…

TOS which have far-reaching powers (“which we will never use”) are fine until the company is sold and Attila the Hun is the new CEO.

Back to privacy. Check out this article on ‘location awareness’ and then go lock-up your daughters.

Be careful out there.