14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past year, the NSA scandal has brought forth an array of related topics, out of which privacy has been the most important.
The impact that the NSA mass surveillance programs have had on our privacy has been at the forefront of most concerns. After all, what everyone wants is to be able to be themselves and knowing that someone is looking over your shoulder causes changes in a person and in the way he or she navigates the Internet.
Internet companies have been doing their best to protect users from the all-seeing eyes of Big Brother by adding several layers of encryption to their networks and making sure that even the links within their networks are secure.
But one problem remains – these Internet companies survive thanks to us, thanks to the data we all agree to share with them once we accept the Terms of Service. It’s only natural after all, since most of us don’t pay a dime for the tools we use online, be them email, social networks, photo storage and so on.
The difference between the NSA and these companies that collect our data is that in the case of the latter, we actually agree to this. It’s a compromise we make in order to use their tools.
What happens to our data? Well, on one hand, companies such as Google use the information to perfect their tools, the very same we use on a daily basis. On the other hand, our data gets packaged in an anonymity bundle and sent off to advertisers which respond by sending back the targeted ads we all see in the pages we visit.
While we may hate ads altogether, the fact that these are being targeted is not all that bad since it’s more likely that you can find something interesting there.
The downside of this entire compromise is the blurred line between our need for privacy and what we’re willing to “pay” for the services we want to use. What is too much?
Facebook, for instance, is slowly turning into a privacy nightmare for everyone. With over 1.2 billion active monthly users, Facebook’s security and privacy settings impact a great number of people all over the world.
Today, the company unveiled a new plan to start looking into people’s browsing history in order to target ads even better. Up until now, the company only used the data for security reasons, but now it wants to use this for more.
This isn’t a new practice for Internet companies; far from it, actually. In fact, Google, Yahoo and others do the same thing, but for some reason, the fact that the social network with which you actually snoop into even more private information seems a bit more concerning.
The company won't exactly share the data it found in your browsing history with advertisers, but this will be included among the other information Facebook sends off to advertisers under anonymity.
Add to this a recently rolled out feature for the mobile app that helps you let Facebook listen in to your surroundings just so you don’t have to type in a few more letters to describe the TV show you’re watching or the song you’re listening to and you get a complete hassle.
Facebook will, of course, let users disable the first feature and shut down the second, but the fact that everyone will have to opt out of them rather than enable them by choice is quite concerning.
Considering the fact that a great number of users barely know how to change their security settings, having them dig through the features to see how best to protect their privacy isn’t exactly the best tactic.
Bad move, Facebook!