Pre-class Discussion for Jan 15: Difference between revisions
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* I think one of the most important points to take away from this is that default settings matter. When the default on Facebook was to have Beacon as an opt-out service, there were many stories of users who hadn't even noticed pop-up windows asking whether they wanted their purchase to be reported on Facebook. As a result, some holiday presents that users had bought for their friends appeared in those same friends' Facebook news feeds. Thus, the opt-out default turned out to cause real problems. Even though Facebook has changed many of their policies regarding Beacon, in order to entirely opt out of the service one must affirmatively change their Facebook settings and state that they never want their activity on outside websites reported to Facebook. I get the sense that if Beacon was introduced entirely as an opt-in feature, almost no average users would change their privacy settings to allow outside websites to sometimes post their behavior on Facebook. Clearly, default settings matter. --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:15, 14 January 2008 (EST) | * I think one of the most important points to take away from this is that default settings matter. When the default on Facebook was to have Beacon as an opt-out service, there were many stories of users who hadn't even noticed pop-up windows asking whether they wanted their purchase to be reported on Facebook. As a result, some holiday presents that users had bought for their friends appeared in those same friends' Facebook news feeds. Thus, the opt-out default turned out to cause real problems. Even though Facebook has changed many of their policies regarding Beacon, in order to entirely opt out of the service one must affirmatively change their Facebook settings and state that they never want their activity on outside websites reported to Facebook. I get the sense that if Beacon was introduced entirely as an opt-in feature, almost no average users would change their privacy settings to allow outside websites to sometimes post their behavior on Facebook. Clearly, default settings matter. --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:15, 14 January 2008 (EST) | ||
== Privacy as Censorship == | == Privacy as Censorship == | ||
* This article makes the claim that government databases pose much greater threats to the public than private databases. However, in Prof. Zittrain's book, he points out that the Privacy Act of 1974 applied a set of fair information practices to government agencies' records, but "Congress never enacted a comparable comprehensive regulatory scheme for private databases." Even if government records pose the potential for more harm to the public, could the lack of regulation of private databases in reality pose a greater threat? --[[User:NikaE|NikaE]] 20:19, 14 January 2008 (EST) | |||
== Reputation Economies == | == Reputation Economies == | ||
Revision as of 21:19, 14 January 2008
Questions for Chris Kelly
- (from Question tool): With Facebook opening up to anyone (instead of being closed to certain (i.e. educational) networks), what are you doing to avoid/mitigate some of the privacy and security issues that have been encountered on MySpace?
- (from Question tool): Is facebook's commercial strengths/strategy lying more in providing the best features/development platform to attract users or aggregating/analyzing the most information about users for better advertising monetization?
Firefox Workaround to Block Facebook Beacon
Here's a workaround for Firefox that I received a few days into this drama that lets you block Facebook beacon. Jumpingdeeps 10:15, 13 January 2008 (EST)
Future of the Internet, Chapter 9
Facebook Responds to Privacy Concerns
- I think one of the most important points to take away from this is that default settings matter. When the default on Facebook was to have Beacon as an opt-out service, there were many stories of users who hadn't even noticed pop-up windows asking whether they wanted their purchase to be reported on Facebook. As a result, some holiday presents that users had bought for their friends appeared in those same friends' Facebook news feeds. Thus, the opt-out default turned out to cause real problems. Even though Facebook has changed many of their policies regarding Beacon, in order to entirely opt out of the service one must affirmatively change their Facebook settings and state that they never want their activity on outside websites reported to Facebook. I get the sense that if Beacon was introduced entirely as an opt-in feature, almost no average users would change their privacy settings to allow outside websites to sometimes post their behavior on Facebook. Clearly, default settings matter. --NikaE 20:15, 14 January 2008 (EST)
Privacy as Censorship
- This article makes the claim that government databases pose much greater threats to the public than private databases. However, in Prof. Zittrain's book, he points out that the Privacy Act of 1974 applied a set of fair information practices to government agencies' records, but "Congress never enacted a comparable comprehensive regulatory scheme for private databases." Even if government records pose the potential for more harm to the public, could the lack of regulation of private databases in reality pose a greater threat? --NikaE 20:19, 14 January 2008 (EST)