Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’
Do You Think These New Facebook Privacy Settings Really Protect Your Privacy?
May 27th, 2010 | 
Author: Facebook introduced its latest set of privacy settings changes today to appease disgruntled users who have been somewhere within the range of mildly irritated to outraged over the previous incarnation. The company is getting numerous pats on the back, or at least "that’s more like it" responses from people for the most part.
Do you like the latest approach Facebook is taking to privacy? Tell us what you think.
While the settings do address the main concerns that have been so widely discussed and publicized since the launch of Facebook’s Open Graph/instant personalization initiative, no privacy settings are truly going protect people’s privacy on Facebook – and that’s not Facebook’s fault. I would blame a combination of human nature and technology.
If you’re worried about privacy and how it is related to Facebook, it really doesn’t matter how many times Facebook adjusts its privacy settings. The fact of the matter is that there is no more privacy, unless you don’t interact with people whatsoever. This applies whether you have a Facebook account or not. That really makes no difference if someone whips out their phone and takes a picture of you. With most modern phones, all they have to do is tap a button to send it right to Facebook for all of their friends to see. Did you say or do something embarrassing at a party? Witnesses can easily become instant broadcasters, and there’s a good chance that some of their Facebook friends know you.
Did you casually mention something to a friend? Anything? They may mention it in a status update and instantly let all of their friends know about it. Whether or not they did this with any malicious intent is irrelevant. It happens. Human contact in general should be considered non-private. If you say or do anything that you truly want kept private, you better keep it to yourself or let people know you don’t want others to know about it (and hope that they care).
Facebook is really just an extension of the web itself, when it comes to privacy. The same rules apply to YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, or any other platforms where users can communicate to the public (or even to a closed network).
The privacy issues that exist now have existed the entire time the web has been around. It’s only the pace of sharing, which has accelerated. Years ago, someone could have easily created a website about you if they knew how to create a website at all. Status updates and blog posts are just easier. Smartphones make them almost like a reflex for some people – and the smartphone market continues to grow rapidly.
Mark Zuckerberg has taken a lot of flack over the privacy concerns that have arisen around Facebook of late, as well as his own stance on privacy in general, but no matter how much Facebook or any other social networking entity on the web tweaks its privacy, your privacy will never truly be ensured – unless you hide from society completely.
There are pros and cons to the manner in which technology evolves (and continues to do so). Regardless of your stance on privacy, it’s pretty clear that things aren’t going to be slowing down anytime soon, and a decreased sense of privacy is simply a side effect.
Who’s getting excited about Facebook readying location features?
If you have anything to contribute to this conversation, please do so in the comments.
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Facebook Photo Tagging Goes Web-wide
Face.com, the developers of the facial recognition technology behind Facebook apps like Photo Tagger and Photo Finder announced that it is opening up its API, which will allow developers to take advantage of this technology anywhere on the web. We had a chat with Face.com founder Gil Hirsch, who talked about the technology, the API, Facebook’s Open Graph, and what kind of apps we can expect to see around this API.
Basically, the API allows third-parties to utilize the technology behind Photo Finder and Photo Tagger to create new and unique ways of utilizing facial recognition. Face.com has scanned billions of photos and tagged over 50 million users through these two apps. Between the API and Facebook’s Open Graph initiative, imagine how many more will be scanned/tagged.
"What it means for us, is you can now apply facial recognition on your social graph," Hirsch tells WebProNews. You can take the functionality to other websites. "You can take it outside the walled garden [of Facebook]." You can ID your Facebook friends in Picasa or Flickr photos for example.
Hisrch says he’s heard two to three hundred people have ideas for what they wanted to do with the technology before they even opened up the API. These things range from retail apps to e-cards, and campaign managers wanting to personalize campaigns. "Everyone came up with a different idea," he says.
The company has some sample apps set up to give developers an idea of the kinds of things that are possible. One such example is the Tagger Widget. This lets users add a Face tagging interface to any image on a webpage. It automatically places tags on people’s faces, and allows users to add names.
Another example is PosterYourself, which lets you inject your Facebook friends’ faces into images for things like e-cards, posters, and other creative apps:
These are just a couple of examples. There’s no telling what we’ll see developers actually do with this technology. Technorati Founder Dave Sifry is already utilizing the API for some apps. He says, "I’ve been impressed with Face.com’s API, and their plan for working closely with developers to build great applications that incorporate face detection and face recognition. Open platforms like this one will enable the creation of exciting new applications that we’ve never seen before at scale."
Facebook’s Open Graph has already caused a great deal of concern over privacy. It will be interesting to see if any such concerns are raised over this, with people’s faces are coming into play (though that was really already happening through Facebook itself).
"Privacy is something from day one we’ve put in everything we do," says Hirsch. He says Face.com applies the same logic that applies inside of Facebook. You can only ID people within your social graph. He says they enforce that through verification through valid Facebook or Twitter sessions. You can’t just do people who aren’t your friends.
The idea behind this API is that people will create more engagement around photos all around the web, Hirsch says. A lot of people ask him if it can be applied to security strategies, but Face.com is more focused on the consumer world, and applying its technology to consumer apps – not security.
Face.com does have a product that can help you monitor where your Face is being used, however. It’s had "Face Alerts " for a while. Think about this as Google Alerts for images of you.
