Sunday, May 9, 2010

Facebook and Privacy

I recently decided to deactivate my Facebook account. I did that based on several reports of Facebook disregarding the privacy of users in order to further monetize their platform. To be sure, they have a fantastic platform and I've liked being able to connect with people I haven't seen in a long time. However, hosting user data comes with the responsibility of keeping the trust of the user. To me, for now they've broken that trust. Anyway, I just thought I would post what I sent to Facebook when I deactivated my account:
According to several reports lately from the EFF, Wired, and several online publications, Facebook has consistently changed privacy terms out from underneath users. Part of the reason that I felt safe on Facebook and not in other networks was that I trusted Facebook to some extent. Based on these new changes and the seeming disregard for its users, I would rather not support Facebook any longer. Thank you for the remarkable service, but right now I don't feel that Facebook is trustworthy. They seem like they will do anything in order to further monetize the network/platform, including compromise the trust of its users. It's an unfortunately short-sighted gamble and I hope you will reconsider.

See:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/05/things-you-need-know-about-facebook
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline
http://www.pcworld.com/article/195888/facebooks_antiprivacy_backlash_gains_ground.html

1 comment:

Ryan said...

I've done pretty much the same.

This graphic is pretty startling: http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/