Is Intellectual Property Law in Need of an Overhaul? [video]
Facebook lied & stole your data…making billions of dollars.
Who wants to use a service that lies, cheats, and steals from them?
I mean, a service other than Facebook, right?
Because that’s what Facebook has been doing for years. Lure you in, get your data, pictures, friends, and then, they change the rules. It’s scary, it’s creepy, it’s dishonest, and it’s made Zuckerberg one of the richest twenty-somethings in America. I’ve said so before. More than once.
It turns out the FTC agrees, and Zuckerberg has settled in our favor. Now, instead of an “opt out” privacy system, Facebook will now be an “opt in.” If you want to open your settings up, you need to open them up yourself. No more “private until we make a few changes and make sure the whole world see your vacation photos” shenanagry, as Gizmodo puts it.
The biggest change is that Facebook must give, consumers “clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers’ express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established.”
Sounds a bit more reasonable. Just like your medical records, you must give consent before Facebook shares your stuff. I’ve heard the previous system employed by Facebook described as giving control and ownership of your content–photos, posts, and updates–to Facebook, effectively making it theirs. This seems to pass some of that ownership back to you, the original owner and creator.
This sounds like a no-brainer, what Facebook would want to do since it’s what Facebook’s users want it to do. It’s certainly something that Google+ has integrated in its social network, to much acclaim. Now, with the FTC’ forcing it, Facebook is finally making the change.
_____________________________________
If you’re just jumping into this, you might be wondering: what exactly has Facebook done that is wrong?
It all goes back to 2009 and some changes that Facebook made to users privace. According to the FTC:
- In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. They didn’t warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.
- Facebook represented that third-party apps that users’ installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users’ personal data – data the apps didn’t need.
- Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with “Friends Only.” In fact, selecting “Friends Only” did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.
- Facebook had a “Verified Apps” program & claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn’t.
- Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.
- Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.
- Facebook claimed that it complied with the U.S.- EU Safe Harbor Framework that governs data transfer between the U.S. and the European Union. It didn’t.
[Emphasis mine] Here’s the FTC’s full statement on the settlement.
Are you following all that? To sum up: Facebook has lied, cheated, and stolen your pictures, friend lists, data, biographical information, and so on, all in the interest of increasing their bottom line and all at your expense.
Maybe it’s time for an Occupy Facebook movement. Or just an Abandon Facebook movement.
In the meantime, as the protestors get their tents ready, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps this isn’t at least one place that government regulation might be useful. [gasp]
Sure, we could wait for the market to correct itself, but let’s be honest–Facebook has the upper hand against its users, and it is abusing users trust in a way that most don’t even know its happening. But for the Federal Trade Commission, I doubt there would have been any shift back toward privacy.
What does Mark Zuckerberg have to say for himself? In a statement, he admits (or, rather, claims) that he designed Facebook to give users control over their public presence on the web:
When I built the first version of Facebook, almost nobody I knew wanted a public page on the internet. That seemed scary. But as long as they could make their page private, they felt safe sharing with their friends online. Control was key. With Facebook, for the first time, people had the tools they needed to do this. That’s how Facebook became the world’s biggest community online. We made it easy for people to feel comfortable sharing things about their real lives.
And then, once he had lulled everyone into a false sense of security, gained access to one of the most valuable treasure troves of personal information in the world, and made a fortune equivilent to a small African nation…
That said, I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes.
Yeah. But what he lists as a mistake doesn’t bear a lot of resemblence to what the FTC said the mistake was. “Oops,” says Zuckerberg. “We stole your information, made money using it, and lied about it? Oops. My bad.”
Image via Wikipedia
If not for the FTC, I’m dubious that he would not have continued to spin the profit mill. Yes, he’ll be “working with the Commission [to] implement” the settlement foisted upon Facebook, but only because he has to.
Finally, I also want to reaffirm the commitment I made when I first launched Facebook. We will serve you as best we can and work every day to provide you with the best tools for you to share with each other and the world. We will continue to improve the service, build new ways for you to share and offer new ways to protect you and your information better than any other company in the world.
Next up for Zuckerberg? The IPO. What’s $17.5 billion dollars when your company is about expected to be worth $100 billion?
More importantly, what’s a slap on the wrist by the FTC (no fine, just a privacy audit for the next twenty years) when you’ve got that kind of money in the pipeline?
Related articles
- Facebook and the FTC Announce A Deal, For Now (battellemedia.com)
- FTC slaps Facebook (piedtype.com)
- Facebook FTC Settlement Means 20 Years of Federal Privacy Audits (eset.com)
- Facebook Deceived Users, Should Have Been Fined (forbes.com)
Everything is amazing, right now, and nobody is happy…
And yes, when I was a kid, we had a rotary phone, too.
After watching this, I want to know: are you a non-contributing zero, or are you something else?
Gaming–the next frontier…in science?
You may have seen something similar to this headline on September 19th: “Gamers Solve Molecular Puzzle That Baffled Scientists“.
This was a case where scientists, stumped for over a DECADE while trying to understand the molecular structure of a protein-cutting enzyme found in the AIDS virus, enlisted the help of groups of gamers by creating an online game called “Foldit“, designed to discover the structure.
The result? The structure was figured out in 10 days by a winning team of gamers–involved in what is called citizen science — “a burgeoning field that enlists Internet users to look for alien planets, decipher ancient texts and do other scientific tasks that sheer computer power can’t accomplish as easily.”
Take another example, “Spent“. Spent is a game which simulates how life would be living on $9 an hour. Think you could do it? Go give it a try. It’s harder than you might think. It presents real life financial decisions and dilemmas like whether to buy dental or health insurance, whether to rent out your couch to a late-night partying friend who needs a place to crash, or whether you should pay an overdue bill. Not only do you learn what it is like, but you are taught financial lessons along the way.
It is no doubt that gaming has invaded almost every part of our life. But these examples show how USEFUL games can be in solving problems, creating understanding, and teaching life skills.
How far will this go? Will we be able to use games to figure out solutions for Social Security? Will a game utilizing a real life financial model, complete with tariffs, international trade agreements, and taxes be used to solve our nation’s debt crisis?
Who knows. But I’m excited to see what it can do.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Craig Christensen is a guest writer on Publius Online. For more of Craig’s thoughts on culture, politics, sports, and nonsense, follow him on Twitter: @CraigDChris
Facebook changes: To complain or not to complain.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have noticed that your Facebook experience just got worse. Also, you probably just found out that Geico can save you money on car insurance, but that is another subject for another time.
Facebook has come out with some major changes to the behemoth social networking site. The change has been met with the wrath and disgruntlement of thousands, as well as validating the surging Google+.
But mostly, I’ve just heard people say they don’t like it. Common complaints I’ve heard are 1) People don’t like the new layout. 2) Many dislike the distracting and over-sharey “ticker.” 3)Most users aren’t too happy with how Facebook determines the “top stories”, and 4) Most seem to think the new feature which makes it so you can see when someone de-friends you takes “Facebook stalking” to a whole new level.
Customer satisfaction? The only thing in my my news feed are more complaints:
- “Really disliking the new Facebook…”
- “Why fix something if it’s not broken? I hate the new Facebook ”
- “Trying to get used to this new layout. I wish Facebook would stop changing things.”
- “What the #$^@ is up with that ticker in the upper right? Do I really need to know THAT much about everyone?”
Invariably, new Facebook groups are formed–like the cleverly named“I hate the new Facebook” group, which currently has close to 20,000 members.
This is all followed by people debating whether users should or shouldn’t complain about changes like these, spawning posts like “if you don’t like it, just delete your profile. It’s free, no one is making you use it.”
And this is the question: Do people have a right to complain when something is free? (Or do people have the right to complain about other people complaining? But that discussion might mess with the space-time continuum.)
After all, Facebook is free, right? Is it in poor taste to complain when something is offered to you gratis? The internet delivers content and services free of charge, which has revolutionized our lives and how we communicate–but it has also created a culture of “keyboard courage,” entitlement, and trolling. People expect things to be free and are irritated when they get anything short of the convenient user-experience we expect. (I’m guilty of this, as banner ads and auto-play videos on news sites frequently annoy me.)
Knowing full well that there are far more important issues to discuss, I am instead going to provide two sides to the argument–the “anti-complain” argument, which says that you shouldn’t complain about new features of a free site, and the “pro-complain” camp–which argues that you have every right to complain.
Anti-Complain
Quit your belly aching!
If it is so bad, delete your account and go to Google+. Tell everyone you know who isn’t on Facebook how terrible Facebook is (if you know anyone who isn’t on Facebook, because let’s be honest–if they aren’t, do they really exist?).
Besides, it is free. How would you feel if you decided to host a party for your neighborhood, invited everyone over, gave them refreshments, provided entertainment, only to hear endless complaints about the food and music?
And if you are bugged by the increasingly complicated privacy settings, and how frequently you have to update them, what were you expecting? Facebook is a massive corporation, with database full of extremely valuable consumer preferences. Did you really expect them not to do anything to profit from it?
Pro-Complain
Sure, Facebook users aren’t paying for Facebook usage. At least not monetarily (and won’t ever, contrary to the countless recent posts of Facebook’s rumored secret plot to start charging for membership–see their own fan page, where they address this rumor).
But that doesn’t mean we aren’t paying. We are paying Facebook by freely giving up our key demographic information, our “likes” and “dislikes,” our time, our networks, and our opinions. Facebook profits by selling advertising space to companies who market to people who have precisely those “likes” and “dislikes” and that exact demographic information. So we have every right to express our complaints as paying customers.
Besides, if I go into a restaurant or clothing store, and leave because I’m treated rudely, don’t I have a right to complain–because I wasn’t treated right? Of course. I have “the right” to complain. Just because I didn’t spend money, I was still a patron.
In conclusion, Facebook has caused fascinating cultural and societal changes. Human interactions involving relationship building, marketing, communication, or the simple act of getting to know someone have all been dramatically changed by Facebook. People are addicted to Facebook and spend more time there than any other site–so it’s only natural that they would cling to something that they are comfortable with.
As for my opinion, I am leaning far more towards the “if you don’t like it, delete your account and go to Google+” camp. Then again, this isn’t the first change, and it won’t be the last. Perhaps whining is just perpetually part of the experience.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Craig Christensen is a guest writer on Publius Online. For more of Craig’s thoughts on culture, politics, sports, and nonsense, follow him on Twitter: @CraigDChris
Space shuttle Atlantis returns from its last trip
Space shuttle Atlantis lands at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, July 21, 2011. The landing of Atlantis brings the space shuttle program to an end. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
I’d be dishonest if I didn’t admit that a poster of the space shuttle graced my wall for many a year while I was growing up. I’m sad that the era is ending, but I hope it will not mean the end of space exploration.
Gotta read this book!
I wandered through the Barnes and Noble during my lunch hour, today. I felt like a child in a candy store…
Among the many books that caught my eye, one resonated more than the others: “The Sorcerers and their Apprentices: How the Digital Magicians of the MIT Media Lab Are Creating the Innovative Technologies That Will Transform Our Lives.”
Check this, from a review in the WSJ that I found when I got back to the office:
Part of the Media Lab mystique is that no one owns the intellectual property that its sorcerers and apprentices generate. Rather, the inventions and innovations that come of its “antidisciplinary” approach to problem-solving are put into the public domain for anyone to take up and run with. Lately the Media Lab teams have turned their attention to health-care delivery systems, personal-finance tools, robots that will provide help and companionship for the elderly, and a wearable device that can turn any surface—a tabletop or a human hand—into a computer touch-screen.
Forget iPads and tablets–how about a watch that turns my desk into a computer touch-screen?
That, my friends, is cool stuff. And it’s another reason why we should be focusing more of our educational energies on beefing up on math and the sciences, not what demographic group most contributed to history.
