How could I talk about trust without bringing up the latest facebook controversy? I mean, Whoopi was even talking about it on ‘the View’ yesterday. Here’s the situation: Earlier this month facebook modified their terms of service agreement, and from what I’ve read, thoroughly confused people as to the ownership of information that is placed online. The new terms of service appear to give facebook free reign over member content even after it is deleted. If there’s anything I’ve learned from our class thus far, it’s that transparency is something we’re going to have to face in today’s internet age where most information is out there as a free-for-all.
As I browsed for information on this issue, I found tons of information online. The consumerist did a great article highlighting key section of the terms of use that people have issues with ( Feb. 15: http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever) Mark Zuckerburg, creator of facebook, claims that facebook’s terms on ownership of information is similar to any email site, which still has access to deleted emails.
Interestingly, another article from ‘the Industry Standard’ claims it is likely the issue will be resolved by today (Feb. 16: http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/02/16/facebook-claims-permanent-rights-user-content). Funny enough, today the following post was available in the facebook group of users against the new terms of service:
“In the meantime, we’ve decided to revert to the old Terms as we work to address this. Mark has explained this in more detail in another blog post (http://blog.facebook.com), and we’ve created a group where people can provide input (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69048030774). We hope you’ll join this group and post comments. We promise to use these comments to help construct a new Terms of Use that reflects the principles around how people share and control their information, and that’s written clearly in language everyone can understand.” (Link to the group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77069107432).
I found it interesting that all these issues connect with the issue of trust that we’ve been discussing and reading about in our class. According to Nissenbaum, “if conditions are wrongly stipulated, then efforts to achieve trust may be misdirected.” This is exactly what happened with the trust of facebook users. The terms of service clearly breached rights of facebook users and the trust was broken between the users and the website.
However, Nissenbaum also stated that ‘access control’, ‘transparency of identity’, and ‘surveillance’ were what gave people a sense of security under his assertion that trust is achieved through security. In this case, users declared a certain level of discomfort with the surveillance of their information… but this is the same surveillance that should make them feel safe. It seems like it is always hard to see where the line should be drawn between keeping privacy safe and breaching someone’s privacy.
I’m curious to hear what any of you think about this issue … so let’s hear it :)
By the way, for some more background on the facebook terms of service issue, check out this video from Keith Parnell (an American tech writer):
(START WATCHING AT 1:42)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think an issue like this is a small part of the reason that I am still resisting the temptation to join Facebook (although I have other concerns as well). Trust on the internet is such a big topic - it is just so difficult to tell what is true and what is not; especially for more vulnerable individuals who are just as susceptible in the "real" world. I would like to think that I am able to decifer the truth from nontruth fairly easily - however, I am not naive enough to think that something negative couldn't happen to me. I do try to avoid websites that I have suspicions about instead of taking a risk. I try to lean more toward known companies, sites, etc. in my attempt to 'secure' myself. But there are so many traps out there! Beware!
ReplyDeleteIt is really difficult to judge what can be "trusted" or "secured" online. Are you data or search results really that protected? Even institutions screw up sometimes. Just look at Ryerson University, not long ago they leaked a large amount of personal information of their students onto the internet.
ReplyDeleteAnd not to be paranoid, with all the "free" sites and services that one can use such as Hotmail or Google accounts, it makes you wonder what they are really doing with your data beside using it for advertising and marketing
Or such as posting your picture on Flickr, some ad agency from the other side of the world can use your images in their ad campaign, make a huge profit and you wouldn't even get a single penny for royalty because you wouldn't even know that it have been used improperly.
Individuals should feel safe with institution such as these, but I doubt there is any guarantees in this day and age.