Facebook Legitimate Claim to Privacy
Facebook personal privacy is crucial. Facebook came up with data use policy to make decisive disclosures in regards to how an individual can use Facebook to share with associates and how to gather as well as use the information and content. Users own all the information and content they post, hence they have control of how they share through their application settings and privacy. In addition, contents that are covered by intellectual property rights, IP content like videos and photos that the users post, Facebook has permission and the authority to use; subject to application settings and privacy. This IP License ends when the user deletes the content unless it is shared with others, and have not removed it. A deleted content will still appear in backup copies (Kirkpatrick, 2010).
The application may request permission to access the information and content to any user who would like to use it, as well as what others share with him or her. Facebook requires applications to respect the privacy of the user, while the user agreement with the application will manage how the application can store, transfer, and use the information and content. When an individual publishes some data using the public setting, it means that he or she is giving permission to everyone to have access and use that information to associate with him or her. Facebook appreciates users’ suggestions or feedback, but one should realize that Facebook may use the feedback without having to compensate for them, the same way an individual has no obligation to provide them (Harvell, 2012).
Facebook Sharing Controls
Facebook’s sharing controls are broad and challenging to use. They can assist the users to avoid revealing more information than intended for friends, family, and strangers, although they will not stop their friends from extending along to others sensitive content they have handed over to them. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and chief executive officer designed several changes. These changes include an easier privacy setting tool and page to manage the audience for every post they generate. When a user logs into the account, he or she will be presented with an easy three-step procedure for updating and reviewing settings. For any user who wants more explanation on how privacy works, the Privacy Center gives choices in regards to who can access the posts created or parts of his or her profile.
For those users who have decided to limit access to some parts of the profile, it is recommended that they keep those more limiting settings. At the same time, there will be suggestions based on the manner in which people share information. It is recommended to the user to make available restricted information that will assist people to connect with him or her, information like, ‘About Me’ and where he or she works or is schooling. Another recommendation is that users should ensure a more restrictive setting to more sensitive information like videos and photos in which they are tagged in. According to the new policy, it is crucial for the user to realize the information that Facebook considers public. Information like name, gender, geographic region, and profile photo are taken as public and will be viewed by every user. The Company confirms that with the user’s privacy settings, one can restrict how easy the information is found (Maver & Popp, 2010).
Once the user has made choices basing on the level he or she is comfortable with. Moreover, a person can revisit the settings anytime, and have control over the content. Once this transition is completed, the user is able to decide on the audience for every content he or she posts. A restricted set of basic information that enables the user’s friends to find him or her, will be made public with these changes. This information includes profile picture, name, gender, pages, current city, and friend list. It has been found out that most users who restrict access want to stop contact with strangers or avoid being found in search engines. For this reason, Facebook is safeguarding the settings that enable the user to eliminate himself or herself from search engines hence restricting friend requests and messages to only friends and friends of friends (Team, 2009).
Facebook Sharing Control Ineffectiveness
Facebook has made it possible to share with friends or everyone, but there has not been an easy way to generate and maintain a space for sharing with the small group or community of people like roommates, family, classmates, and co-workers. There has been attempts to establish a solution to assist in mapping out all communities in order to make it easy, and be integrated across applications so that users can interact with different groups in various ways. This has been a social issue that should be put into consideration and instead of asking the user to classify how well he or she knows all of his or her friends, or setting machines to guess which category of people are cohorts, Facebook is trying out something new and simple like inviting a friend over for lunch, which may change the use of this social site (Levmore, 2010).
Changing Facebook Connection Settings
Social networks like Facebook are prone to malware, phishing, and other unwanted issues. Keeping Facebook information private is becoming a challenge since Facebook is always attempting to make it public. To overcome this, the company has come up with a complete guide of how to make information locked and in control. The Company will also keep updating the guide every time there is an additional feature or attempts to alter its privacy defaults again. As there is no ideal solution, the user can change Facebook security settings in an effort to enhance safety and privacy by employing a secure HTTPS connection. This setting is more about security than privacy. All the privacy settings will not help if someone sniffs into one’s data. Facebook launched HTTPS support that makes it impossible for someone linked to the same network to sniff another individual’s data. It makes it slower, as some features are not working yet, but it is highly suggested for security on all online services. Facebook does not encrypt users’ access records by default (Maver & Popp, 2010).
Employing a secured connection is crucial since it will be easy for hackers to access the accounts. This connection solves this issue by encrypting login cookies and data of the user. In order to ensure encryption, the user should click on the account in the upper right corner of his or her page and go to settings, security option to look for secure browsing where he or she will edit and save the changes made. It will then be possible to connect Facebook using HTTPS whenever possible. This connection prevents the user from outside attacks, especially when using Wi-Fi connection. Privacy settings on Facebook are somehow confusing due to availability of to several places that edit the same settings. However, it should be noted that the site is redesigning its interface and will put some of the locations in order (Abram & Pearlman, 2010).
Facebook Facial Recognition and Policies
Facebook has not earned the trust, as there is a huge potential record for mishandling of facial recognition information. The networking giant is exposing the user’s private information to advertisers who get interested. This happens because there were issues where users’ data was being shared with internet tracking companies and advertisers. This poses a huge threat to the privacy of the users. There is a relationship between Facebook and key applications developers since Apps make the face and services of the site to be more attractive. Some large amounts of data are being shared by default, and this is what is happening to facial recognition (Li, 2011). Unless the user changes the setting, friends will view suggestions of photos they are tagged in since Facebook has opted them in. There are no odds that Facebook will say no to such a deal that monetizes store of carefully tagged photos. Datastore would be an alluring target for hackers even in the event that Facebook was cautious about user privacy given how delicate the security at major institutions is (Marichal, 2012).
The company’s technology does not allow individuals to identify others with whom they are not related. It has a sophisticated technology that even law enforcement cannot access it to recognize an unknown individual. It also has a privacy setting that enables users to block others who tag their photos as users can tap a link to demand for the removal of objectionable photos. Data protection officials in Germany are calling upon Facebook Company to destroy its photographic database of faces gathered in the country and demand explicit permission before forming a user’s digital face print. According to an experiment conducted, it was realized that if a user’s face can be recognized in the street using a face recognizer and Facebook, it becomes easier not just to recognize a particular user, but also to deduce more sensitive information using the individual’s name (Maver & Popp, 2010).