Facebook Privacy, Personal Data Protection Regulation, Ethical Publishing

Source: http://www.watblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/facebook-privacy.JPG

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users (CrunchBase, 2010). Facebook was initially created with the purpose of gathering a network group for Harvard students. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, created Facebook in February 2004. In just a few weeks, more than 30 colleges have already demanding a Facebook network (CrunchBase, 2010).

After connecting with different other profile, other people are allowed to view information on other people. After connected, private information can also be viewed. Popular applications were providing access to Facebook member’s names and their friend’s names to companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online (ABC News, 2010).  This can still happen even when the privacy level is set to the maximum, people are still able to view information from a profile. According study did by Emily Steel and Geofrey Fowler (2010), it is not Facebook that allows privacy breach, the application use by the subscriber that permit the access of private information on Facebook. By adding the company would introduce new technology to contain the problem identified (Steel & Fowler, 2010). The 10 most popular applications on Facebook, which include games from Zynga Game, FarmVille, Texas HoldEm Poker and much more, have been transmitting all this personal information about themselves and their friend’s information to unknown companies (Steel & Fowler, 2010).

Facebook has begun solving this problem since long ago. Facebook developers have set the users privacy control as tight as possible. Facebook introduce new technology to contain the violation, and will deactivate ay applications that ignore its terms. The company has already disabled thousands of applications at times for violating its policies (Steel & Fowler, 2010). Facebook engineer, Mike Vernal states that the developers did not pass the user’s information on purpose, but it happens due to the technical features of how browsers operates (ABC News, 2010).  User’s privacy was the company’s top concern and it would continue to give people more controls, stated by Randi Zuckerberg (ABC News, 2010). Users attempting to access those band applications received either an error message or were reverted to Facebook’s home screen (Steel & Fowler, 2010). 

References:

• ABC News, Facebook admits privacy breach, online, retrieved by 6th November 2010, from <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/19/3042594.htm>
• Crunch Base, Facebook, online, retrieved by 6th November 2010, from <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/facebook>
• Steel, E, Fowler, G 2010, Facebook in Privacy Breach, online, retrieved by 6th November 2010, from <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968.html>