More privacy violations at Facebook

Valleywag: “My friend got a call from her friend at Facebook, asking why she kept looking at his profile,” says a privacy-conscious source at a major tech company. Turns out Facebook employees can (and do) check out anyone’s profile. Not only that, but they also see which profiles a user has viewed — a major privacy violation. If you’ve been obsessed with a workmate or classmate, Facebook employees know. If Barack Obama’s intern has been using the campaign account to troll for hotties, Facebook employees know. Within the company, it’s considered a job perk, and employees check this data for fun.

Damien recently said “hah” on my “Wall” on Facebook. He didn’t see fit to reply when I asked what he meant – although it’s possible it has the same retarded design as Bebo’s – but at a guess I’d say he was poking fun at the fact that I’m actually on Facebook, given my larting of it in several locations. In actual fact I’ve been a member since it opened, just like I’m a member of Bebo, MySpace, and most other “Web 2.0” sites. I’m an Internet consultant, it’s my job to keep an eye on these things; plus, when your biggest clients add you to their networks, it’s generally not a good idea to tell them to fuck off.

It doesn’t stop me hating them, and their disdain for privacy. I’ve read several posts recently saying that Facebook is going to become the de facto social networking site across the board, not just for the social networking addicts, but for professionals too. And they may be right, and Facebook certainly seems to be trying to accomodate them; but that doesn’t mean that they have the best platform, or more importantly, the best practices and policies. It means they have the most sheep.

I don’t want to be a member of Facebook. I’ll stay a member because it may be good for business in the long run, but I won’t visit it unless I have to. I’d much prefer to spend my time – and money, if necessary – on something like LinkedIn. It has problems too, but it’s just better put together and better thought out. That’s where business people should be, not bleating at each other like idiots and getting nothing done on Facebook.

Google’s Dictionary

I think Google must have a special dictionary that constantly redefines the word “evil” to suit their own ends. The words “privacy” and “competition” would seem to morph about quite a bit too.

In response to a letter the German data protection commissioner wrote to the European competition commissioner, coming out against the Google-Doubleclick deal, Google responded:

“We believe that this acquisition will increase competition and benefit both consumers and advertisers”.

Perhaps if they’d put the statement the other way around it would have been more believable. Of course it will benefit advertisers, since they’ll be in a much better position to target users as a result of the merge of company data. And it will benefit users on one level, in that those ads will be more relevant to them.

What about privacy though? Damien contends that the new kids on the block don’t care about privacy, and he’s probably right, but there’s plenty of us remaining that aren’t kids. And to be perfectly frank, many of us think those partiular kids are thick-as-shit reality TV vegetables, and their own worst enemies anyway.

To add insult to injury Google and DoubleClick add that “DoubleClick does not own, and has limitations on its use of, the data it processes for its publisher and advertiser clients”, which of course ignores the fact that DoubleClick does control the data. And the limitations.

But it’s the “increase competition” line that gets me. How exactly will a merger of two of the biggest advertising firms on the planet increase competition? Answer: it won’t. That would be a lie.

Little tip for you Google: Lying Is Bad. Some might call it “evil”.