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Thread: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

  1. #1
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    Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    So I just closed my Facebook account of several years today.

    Why? Quite simply: I'm tired of Facebook's constant arrogance and effectively saying "but of course you want to opt into this feature, don't you want your friends to know even more about you?"

    They've just launched their new Places feature, which primarily uses your phone's GPS feature to track your movements. While this particular part is opt-in, what's more concerning is that you're automatically opted in to the part which allows your friends to broadcast your known location themselves.

    My big problem is, I shouldn't keep on having to re-check my privacy settings on a monthly basis. I should be able to set something that says "default off" for all their new anti-privacy features and leave it at that. Instead I have to be acutely aware of everything Facebook does in case information about me ends up there which I really don't want to reveal!

    So there's my rant for the day. Anyone else got serious gripes about Facebook they want to vent?

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Why not leave Facebook? If the perceived invasion of privacy is so profound that you can't countenance using the service, then don't use it.

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    Registered User Isis's Avatar
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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Quote Originally Posted by geoff332 View Post
    Why not leave Facebook? If the perceived invasion of privacy is so profound that you can't countenance using the service, then don't use it.
    He just did

    Quote Originally Posted by DJ Mike View Post
    So I just closed my Facebook account of several years today.

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    I like Facebook. Whats the problem?

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    I like Facebook. Whats the problem?
    So do I - My policy is don't give to much info away (eg address or phone number) if necessary set up a separate email address and only accept people who you know who they are and remove anyone you feel uncomfortable about.

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    I like Facebook as a tool, what I don't like was when they adopted their more recent policy of deliberately making the default on your profile to be "share everything to everyone in the world", which of course means having to go into your Privacy Settings and turn everything back off.

    It seems like every month, I was going in and finding more things they'd decided I wanted to share with the world about what I was doing, when quite obviously (based on my other settings) I clearly didn't want that to be the case. This "Places" feature is just another example of that.

    So yes, Facebook is good as a tool for keeping in touch with people, it's just a royal mess in terms of their privacy policy. Now, if they would just add a setting that turns all these sharing features off by default, maybe I'd have less of a problem, but it doesn't seem likely they're ever going to do this.

    Just a word to the wise, really: Check your privacy settings on a regular basis!

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    Senior Member rubyred's Avatar
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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Please help , if you opt not to accept these applications surely that should mean that they won't get your info?
    if you love the life you live then you'll get a lot more done

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    I think you just have to accept that nothing is perfect and if you are aware of the downside you can take measures to ensure that you keep control

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Well if you're someone who checks Facebook on a daily basis I can understand how easy it would be to maintain it more easily. I've ended up not looking at Facebook for well over a month, and that happened to be when they decided to open up everyone's photo albums, interests, etc. for the world and his dog to see. So I came back and found everyone could see a lot about my profile who wasn't even a friend! The annoying part was Facebook didn't even try to contact me to tell me they'd done this, I only found out on logging back in. I accept that it isn't perfect but the least they could do is tell you that things on your profile are about to be made more open. And no, simply pasting a message at the top of your profile isn't an acceptable method of contact.

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    according the the BBC

    At the moment, I would appear it's only available if you use an iPhone and are in the US

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Here is a link from a respected Information professional Phil Bradley on how to switch off all the settings. He keeps an eye on lots of things like Facebook and Twitter, and quite often tells you about this kind of change.

    Cheers WT

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Quote Originally Posted by philsmove View Post
    At the moment, I would appear it's only available if you use an iPhone and are in the US
    Indeed. And not only that, but in order for your friends (only) to actually see where you are, you not only have to be in the US, have an iPhone, have the application downloaded to said phone, but you then have to actually activate it to show the place you are currently in.

    Apart from that, the information in the original post on this thread is 100% accurate

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    If you have a recent version of Firefox, you may be interested in this:
    http://www.mozilla.com/en-GB/firefox/geolocation/

    It uses WiFi (not GPS) to work out where you are, even if you aren't currently using WiFi to connect to the net. I understand it uses WiFi addresses that were captured by Google Streetview. It knows where I am at home, even though my own WiFi equipment wasn't there when Google went past, presumably because some of my neighbours' WiFi was switched on at the time.
    Love dance, will travel

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidY View Post
    If you have a recent version of Firefox, you may be interested in this:
    http://www.mozilla.com/en-GB/firefox/geolocation/

    It uses WiFi (not GPS) to work out where you are, even if you aren't currently using WiFi to connect to the net. I understand it uses WiFi addresses that were captured by Google Streetview. It knows where I am at home, even though my own WiFi equipment wasn't there when Google went past, presumably because some of my neighbours' WiFi was switched on at the time.
    its not standard geolocation by IP address then ?

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    Re: Facebook's latest anti-privacy venture

    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe View Post
    its not standard geolocation by IP address then ?
    Well I tried this away from home, using a USB dongle to connect.

    If I switched off my laptop's WiFi, it didn't seem to know where I was. But if I switched on the WiFi, even though I wasn't using it to connect to the web, it worked out where I was quickly.

    So I'm pretty sure it wasn't using the IP address that I was currently connected on.

    I don't know whether that's "standard geolocation by IP address" or not?
    Love dance, will travel

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