The Facebook Privacy Policy Ethics Media Essay

As computer technology has increased, social networking has become a very popular form of online communication along with Facebook; the most popular worldwide social networking website that gained more than a hundred million of users to joined the site within months. However, Facebook has also become one of the biggest case studies of privacy discussion; there are a number of controversial issues related to its privacy policy changes. One main issue is the complexity of its privacy settings, whenever Facebook creates a new version which happened very so often. Facebook's privacy settings is also changed and getting more complex. It always contained numbers of words and detailed options that gave users confusion. For that reason, most users simply ignored this page and left their settings at the default. Besides, Facebook occasionally changes its available privacy options over the past years, making it difficult for users to keep up. As a result users lost their privacy without knowing that. In this assignment I would like to point out why it is important for Facebook to address these privacy concerns, from both a business and ethical standpoint.

What is Facebook?

Facebook was created as a primarily social network within college campus in Harvard by Mark Zuckerberg and his mate. At that time it was call Thefacebook. What Facebook users do is to create a profile page that shows their friends and networks information about themselves. The choice to include a profile in a network means that everyone within that network can view the profile. The profile typically includes the following: Information, Status, Friends, Photos, Notes, Groups, and The Wall.

Facebook's default privacy settings control the most basic aspects of users' visibility: status updates and photos with choices of who can see the profile; Public, Friends or Custom.

"Public" is for anyone with Internet access can see everything a user post on Facebook, what user thinks, does and says on Facebook. This choice provides an open audience and the least privacy.

Choosing "Friends" is to share updates with everyone on user's list of friends. This setting represents the privacy level that a majority of social media users select.

"Custom" is to select who can see user's posts on the page basis. This option makes it more privacy for user's posts, because user is very clear on what to show whom.

At that time, although Facebook tried to keep users' personal details and information only shown in their profile, somehow, there were times that users' information was giving away unintentionally to many applications that come along with the site. That means the privacy protection on Facebook doesn't protect users' information from those Facebook applications therefore they can simply access information from users' profile through their operations.

Facebook's privacy policy changes overtime

Today there are almost a billion of Facebook users, sharing their personal information online every single day, in every single minute. Users understand that their personal information is protected by a high degree of privacy that Facebook has established; the users should have full control over the use of their personal information, detailed notification and permission, and opt-in procedures for new features and changes. While registering with Facebook had seemed like a good thing at the time, it only allowed registered users, who could view a profile were those in a user's Facebook network. "In this way, Facebook used privacy as a key differentiator against its biggest rival; MySpace, the dominant social networks of the time." (O'Neill, 2010) "Founder Mark Zuckerberg went so far as to say that privacy control was "the vector around which Facebook operates." (Atesci, 2010)

"No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings" Facebook's Privacy Policy; 2004.

However, since being founded until now, there are some of the major privacy policies that have been changed over the time of the company. Without noticing when a new user initially signs up for Facebook, the site automatically selects certain default privacy settings for them. These settings are very customizable, but many users never bother to adjust the settings.

In 2007, Facebook's default privacy settings had been changed so that all users could see everyone's basic profile information including their name and picture. More detailed information was visible to people in a user's network.

Moreover in 2009, Facebook's privacy settings another major change. At that stage, each user's name, picture, and basic information appeared in Google search results

In 2010, again the default settings were adjusted. This time, except wall posts and photos, all information is visible to the entire internet by default. Certain basic information, including a user's name, picture, and associations must be visible to the entire internet. There are no options to more narrowly restrict access to this information.

Of course, Facebook still gave users options to show or not to be shown contents in their pages by going through page of detailed information that they would like to make a change otherwise simply click accept button so their page will be prompted to change privacy settings to this new and more open default. This only means, Facebook presented these changes as providing more control over privacy, and also numbers of privacy options were removed as well.

Facebook has changed many times and Timeline is the latest big change. Facebook started released Timeline for some users as a trial in September 2011 and two months later it has become available to any users who wanted it.

Timeline has completely different display users' profile data compare with previous ones. All users' information related to their activities or events they are joining. It is likely a change in profile's display and layout not just a fundamental change like before and once they make the switch to Timeline there is no way to change back to the previous one.

In Timeline privacy settings have no change that doesn't me Facebook would make it less complex conversely a bad part of Facebook Timeline makes it easier for users or other friends can see Facebook history, even some things that users might don't want anyone to see. If users did not remove or forget to delete things they do not want to be seen, their friends on friend lists will be able to track users past events, posts or photos back to the very first date since users signed up. Timeline has been a controversial change, because it is being forced on everybody, it revealed old status updates people would rather forget, and because of privacy concerns.

Facebook needs users' page to look the same. It needs every user to accept the changes. Facebook is just like other website on the Internet that needs all of users' page having the same version. But the problem Facebook has is users are feeling they don't want to change it, they will not change it right away and try hang onto the old version as long as they can.

Unfortunately that isn't an issue for Facebook. When it needs all users to change their profile into timeline, it will not ask for approval from users. There are approximately 900 million users on Facebook. Which I guess there could be millions still trying not to switch to Facebook Timeline, even though, eventually, users' pages will automatically switch to timeline without permission for its users. It's just a matter of time.

The ethics of privacy on Facebook

AT the beginning Facebook has made clear public statements about their principles on privacy over the years. One of the possible reasons Facebook broke their principles from the w ay it used to be because money.

When Zuckerberg started Facebook making money wasn't his interest, probably he was just a student and his desire was just to change the world, money wasn't his firs priority until now. All information that users share in public on Facebook is more valuable to the company, surely it is much more than information that they just share in a small group of friends.

Firstly, when content being widely available on the site, even those who are not already a friend can see profile information, photos, and status updates for a larger number of people, This makes the site more engaging and increasing the time people spend browsing.

Secondly, it creates social demand for people to start having a Facebook account and share more information on their account. "Studies show that people are more likely to reveal personal information when their peers are doing it." (Schneier, 2010) This increases user engagement including creating a positive feedback and also helps Facebook to become the primary destination for social interaction on the web.

Moreover, Facebook keens to gain more page views by giving away users' information that opened publicly on search engines. The reason of Facebook decided to get more views because of the growth of competition especially Twitter which opens for public and starting to have a more traffic from searches. So Facebook set its position as a sort of online 'white pages' for the world as it has every user's name, picture, and basic information visible to the entire internet all this information shows up in search engines, represent as if Facebook is one of the greatest online sources of finding people. Furthermore, "Facebook is now capturing information about you anytime you are on a website that has a Facebook "like" button or some sort of Facebook widget. Whether or not you click those features, Facebook still knows you are there and stores that information for up to 90 days."[1](Justin Brookman, 2012)

Timeline is surely another source of making money for Facebook. It appears data in a new simply way for an advertising company to categorize what type of advertising to display to each user and also the number of times the ads should be shown, so it would be easier for Facebook to increase its revenue by selling advertising.

Facebook decided and announce its going public in May 18, 2012 for people to invest in Facebook. This could affect users as Facebook now will focus on earning a profit so clearly it would be the first priority and more important than users' needs.

As a result, more ads appear on users' pages in order to produce more profit and benefit to shareholders. This means, soon, user's needs or pleasures will no longer be in Facebook's first concern and will be degraded as it needs to put its market shares grow every quarter.