For the last couple of days I have been struggling to put into words why I find the recent Facebook announcements so unsettling and more importantly decide what if anything to do about it. On the surface Facebook are offering exactly the sort of information unification that I’ve been wanting all along. A way to connect my various social networks and transfer data easily from one to the other. A way to have a single unique identity which is clearly me. This in and of itself is a good thing. But… All of this information. My entire online identity is potentially being put in the hands of Facebook. A single privately held company who’s function is to make a profit. A company that has a poor track record when it comes to user privacy. A company that I fundamentally don’t trust. What’s Wrong With Facebook? The way the have implemented this is a perfect example of what is wrong with Facebook. They opted all their users into this new scheme and you have to opt yourself out. That’s completely back to front. The only reason we haven’t seen a major outcry about this is that very few Facebook users understand what has been done yet. Even less realize just what data Facebook has on them already and how casually it seems to pass that out to its developers. Their cavalier attitude to this does not bode well for how they will handle all this data in the future. Aren’t You Being Paranoid? I don’t think so. I’m not generally a big privacy advocate. I’m pretty open on the web. My tweets are public, my buzzes are public, most of my facebook posts are at least semi-public; my email address is public; I happily check in with FourSquare and Gowalla. I generally think that if you don’t want something public you shouldn’t really be posting it on someones website. But, this is all by my choice, not by another companies. That doesn’t mean I want someone tracking every step I take around the web and then providing that data to random “developers” to use. It’s My Identity This is really my biggest concern. I don’t want someone else to own my identity. I use the cloud heavily, but I can replace any individual element that I’m using. No Twitter? Fine I’ll use Buzz or FriendFeed. Gmail goes down? No problem I have my mail backed up and I can load it into any other mail program I choose. My Flickr photos also exist on Posterous and in Facebook and Picassa. And of course I have this, my own website. The heart of my online identity. And that’s how it should be. This is my identity. I own it. I may choose to lease it to Twitter or Google or Facebook, but I wish to maintain control of it. Facebook’s moves threaten that and it disturbs me. So What Are You Going To Do? There lies the rub. I use Facebook on a daily basis. It’s my primary way of connecting with my family who are many miles away from me. I also use Facebook Connect as an easy way to log into a number of sites. And then there’s the Like and Share buttons on this very page. So what am I going to do. Is my discomfort with Facebook and what they are trying to do sufficient to make me take steps that will inconvenience me? Related articles by Zemanta
Does Facebook deserve to own the Web? Maybe not (social.venturebeat.com) Syncing social tools (especially Foursquare) requires some thought (stevebuttry.wordpress.com) Is Facebook trying to revolutionize the web for the good of Facebook? (lostremote.com) Facebook: A quick guide to those announcements (guardian.co.uk) Facebook Makes Itself a Central Point of Failure for the Web (gigaom.com) I Think Facebook Just Seized Control Of The Internet (techcrunch.com)
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