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Facebook and your data
By Wolfie | January 17, 2008
A few days ago, I wrote this post about the amount of data that people give to Facebook, and asked whether those that do so had really thought about the implications of what they are doing. The post was prompted by the story about Robert Scoble being banned for scraping data from the site.
In the comments for that post, brightfeather asked:
(1) When you say “trimmed” I take that to mean that you removed some information. What did you remove?
(2) And what would you recommend as the bare minimum amount of information to post on Facebook?
I was going to reply in the comments for that post, but thought that this was worth a post by itself.
To answer the first part, I removed photos, school history, employment history (but not current employer), all of the “About Me” type information like interests, favourite movies, etc as well as hometown, country, political views, religious views, groups and all my contact details other than websites that I’m associated with.
I also took the opportunity to remove all those annoying applications that Facebook is infested with these days, even though I didn’t have that many on my profile.
The information that I left is already in the public domain; my employer, for example, is known to anyone that reads any of my blogs. I also left my profile picture, as it’s the same picture I use everywhere.
I didn’t delete the account entirely because I use Facebook to stay in easy contact with people; if you lose their email address you can still send them a message via Facebook. And it’s also a good way to get back in touch with people that you’ve not heard from for a long time. However, my account remains restricted so even though there’s no longer much information up there, only my friends can see it all; everyone else just gets a potted version.
The rest of Facebook (all those stupid applications and how many varieties of ‘Wall’ that just get filled with the same four or five allegedly funny items) just doesn’t appeal to me - but then, it’s not really aimed at my demographic.
To answer the second part is harder and will, I imagine, be different for each individual because it comes down to how comfortable you are with disclosing personal information. The first problem is that Facebook don’t seem to have users interests at heart when it comes to spreading data around (see the recent press about Beacon) because data is valuable - they can sell it to advertisers for big bucks. The second problem is that, as Robert Scoble demonstrated, Facebook can be scraped. What this means is that you’ve got a repository of information about in excess of 50 million people (at least that’s the most recent user figure I’ve heard) which is not too hard for someone with the right software to access. And data is valuable to them too; for opening bank accounts in your name, getting credit cards or scamming you directly.
So you have to ask yourself what you’re happy about people knowing, but remember that identity theft does not require much information (see this story about Jeremy Clarkson if you’re in any doubt), so the more information you put up the more at risk you could be.
For instance, let’s say that you’re a young married man with a family. So your profile shows who you’re married, and your friends list may include your brothers and sisters, and your Mum and Dad. You put up where you went to school, where you work, pictures of your darling children (and their names and ages), pictures of your car and your house. You tell people your hometown and when you’re going away on holiday. You make status updates about how you hate your Bank - and you tell people which Bank it is so they can avoid it. All in one session at the computer.
Now you can call me paranoid if you want, but with all of the data losses that have been going on in the UK recently do you really want to give any more away? Do you really want to take the risk?
Disclaimer: All opinions in this blog are either my own or else they’re made up just to get a rise out of you and make you angry. Either way, they’re probably not very well thought out or expressed so do yourself a favour and don’t take the world so seriously.
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Tags: Facebook, Data, Protection, Clarkson, Scoble
Categories: Life |
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Subscribe by: Email or RSS :: Read more Howling at The Wolf's Howl @ BlogSpot :: Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. No reproduction without prior permission. :: Disclaimer: All opinions in this blog are either my own or completely made up; you decide.
:: brightfeather had this to say:
I have never seen a Facebook page. I’ve only read read reports and heard descriptions of their contents and, I really appreciate the depth of your answer.
Spreading my personal information (data) around and having it pimped (sold to advertisers) for profit - no thank you. The bare minimum amount of information is my comfort zone.
That leads me to another question. lol … And maybe another post. What are the bare minimum ie. least identity revealing ways to operate on the internet as a blogger?
[Wolfie edit: I've removed a smiley from this comment, because for some reason they really screw up the way the comment is displayed]
3:46 am :: January 18th, 2008:: timethief had this to say:
I was reading an interesting news article today that reminded me of this post so, I stopped in to share it.
1:07 am :: February 12th, 2008:: Collin had this to say:
:: brightfeather had this to say:
@C,
12:20 am :: March 6th, 2008You made me lol ;-D))
:: brightfeather had this to say:
I though you might like to read this
4:51 pm :: April 11th, 2008http://smnr.eu/content/my-data-my-data-social-media-news-release
:: Wolfie had this to say:
@brightfeather:
7:45 am :: April 14th, 2008Thanks for this. I’ll check it out.