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< | Ready for review. All comments are appreciated . | | | Facebook Applications and Minor Users: The New Danger of Facebook? | | | Facebook Applications and Minor Users
A significant but less obvious danger is that by partnering with various other companies, Facebook will learn so much about its users that "privacy" becomes a thing of the past. This problem is magnified by the fact that children may join Facebook, potentially creating records of their behavior and preferences over many years before they are adequately equipped to make the decision to share such information. Because users voluntarily share so much information with Facebook, and because there are some apparently convenient reasons for allowing other sites to link to Facebook, Facebook has great potential to destroy what’s left of our private lives. The most dangerous aspect of Facebook as it relates to privacy may not be Facebook per se, but the multiple information gathering applications that run on Facebook. | |
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> | Facebook could know where and when a user goes out for a run, which high school seniors schools in the NCAA are recruiting, every action that a user makes while on Amazon and where users plan to travel on spring break. As the data analysis technology behind each of the companies that links to Facebook becomes more sophisticated, the information that the companies' applications share will reveal increasingly personal information. Consider Amazon - currently the site creates recommendations by filtering and matching "each of the user's purchased and rated items into a recommendation" list (see: www.cs.umd.edu/~samir/498/Amazon-Recommendations.pdf), rather than by comparing users to other users(78). Eventually, however, it seems likely that a program will be developed that can combine the current item-to-item matching with other factors such as timing of various purchases, location of purchaser, and other factors. | | | | |
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< | Facebook could know where and when a user goes out for a run, which high school seniors schools in the NCAA are recruiting, every action that a user makes while on Amazon and where users plan to travel on spring break. As the data analysis technology behind each of the companies that links to Facebook becomes more sophisticated, the information that the companies' applications share will reveal increasingly personal information. Consider Amazon - currently the site creates recommendations by filtering and matching "each of the user's purchased and rated items into a recommendation" list (see: www.cs.umd.edu/~samir/498/Amazon-Recommendations.pdf), rather than by comparing users to other users(78). Eventually, however, it seems likely that a program will be developed that can combine the current item-to-item matching with other factors such as timing of various purchases, location of purchaser, and other factors. In the case of Amazon, this would mean that both Amazon, Facebook and any third parties with whom either of the first two companies shared information could eventually make near perfect predictions about what a user would and would not like to purchase. This is a useful marketing tool, but is also information that could potentially be used to determine a user's political affiliations, lifestyle choices, hobbies, career path, etc. As the information available from these applications increases, Facebook will own information providing an increasingly complete picture not just of what a person looks like or does (as can be found from Facebook without applications) but also of formerly "private" aspects of a person, such what a person dreamed of doing with his life when he was young. Currently, Facebook is allowed to access to an extensive database of information because many individual Facebook users grant it permission to access their data. This means that young users, deemed "minors," and prohibited from making many important choices for themselves, may give away their privacy before they realize what sharing certain information may ultimately mean.
Though the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act protects children under 13, it does not cover minors ages 13 to 17. Under COPPA, websites may not collect "personal information," including "hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanism" about children under 13 without parental consent. However, the five years during which a child is minor but not protected by COPPA provide ample time for him to share information over which he may later regret having lost control.
One Potential Solution
The easiest solution to these Facebook related privacy problems is simple - get off of Facebook (or at least restrict younger users). However, given that millions of users continue to voluntarily share personal information with Facebook, both directly and through third-party applications, another solution is necessary. I would propose a legislative solution whereby Facebook is prohibited from directly providing information to or receiving information from other websites about its minor users, including those age 13 to 17. Users under 18 should not be able to waive this right by allowing Facebook and other companies to share their information directly (though nothing is to stop users from posting similar information directly into their profiles). By preventing the sharing of user-generated personal information between Facebook and other companies, this legislation could protect users from giving away more than they mean to - which happens when small pieces of information combine over the course of years to create a bigger, clearer picture that is greater than the sum of its parts. Of course such legislation would face challenges: users might find build applications that circumvent Facebook controls, the legislation might not be popular because it's seen as impeding free speech or business development, or, perhaps most significantly, the legislation might fail because from a practical point of view, websites have limited abilities to identify users' true ages. However, such legislation would at least slow the speed at which Facebook youngest users' privacy is completely eroded, possibly providing them with enough time to realize how much they might ultimately lose by sharing personal information. | >
> | Other way around. Amazon used to provide such
information to customers, through affinity "circles," so you could
see what books the people who worked for your company or who lived in
your neighborhood were buying. People got panicky, and they backed
off publishing that information, though of course they mine it for
themselves, and sell it to book publishers and other
merchandisers. | | | | |
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> | In the case of Amazon, this would mean that both Amazon, Facebook and any third parties with whom either of the first two companies shared information could eventually make near perfect predictions about what a user would and would not like to purchase. This is a useful marketing tool, but is also information that could potentially be used to determine a user's political affiliations, lifestyle choices, hobbies, career path, etc. As the information available from these applications increases, Facebook will own information providing an increasingly complete picture not just of what a person looks like or does (as can be found from Facebook without applications) but also of formerly "private" aspects of a person, such what a person dreamed of doing with his life when he was young. Currently, Facebook is allowed to access to an extensive database of information because many individual Facebook users grant it permission to access their data. This means that young users, deemed "minors," and prohibited from making many important choices for themselves, may give away their privacy before they realize what sharing certain information may ultimately mean. | | | | |
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> | Though the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act protects children under 13, it does not cover minors ages 13 to 17. Under COPPA, websites may not collect "personal information," including "hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanism" about children under 13 without parental consent. However, the five years during which a child is minor but not protected by COPPA provide ample time for him to share information over which he may later regret having lost control. | | | | |
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> | I'm not sure why "being a minor" is the relevant
category here. From 0-13, one set of rules, from 13-18 another, and
then "adulthood"? Seems to me the questions are, when can one teach
people how to make such decisions, how should one teach people to
make such decisions? But we cannot answer those questions until we
decide how we want people to answer those decisions. If our view
is that we want people to behave as consumers subjugated by personal
debt, we will prefer the current population to one more educated and
empowered. | | |
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" on the next line:
# * Set ALLOWTOPICVIEW = TWikiAdminGroup, HeatherStevenson
Note: TWiki has strict formatting rules. Make sure you preserve the three spaces, asterisk, and extra space at the beginning of that line. If you wish to give access to any other users simply add them to the comma separated list | >
> | One Potential Solution
The easiest solution to these Facebook related privacy problems is simple - get off of Facebook (or at least restrict younger users). However, given that millions of users continue to voluntarily share personal information with Facebook, both directly and through third-party applications, another solution is necessary. I would propose a legislative solution whereby Facebook is prohibited from directly providing information to or receiving information from other websites about its minor users, including those age 13 to 17. Users under 18 should not be able to waive this right by allowing Facebook and other companies to share their information directly (though nothing is to stop users from posting similar information directly into their profiles). By preventing the sharing of user-generated personal information between Facebook and other companies, this legislation could protect users from giving away more than they mean to - which happens when small pieces of information combine over the course of years to create a bigger, clearer picture that is greater than the sum of its parts. Of course such legislation would face challenges: users might find build applications that circumvent Facebook controls, the legislation might not be popular because it's seen as impeding free speech or business development, or, perhaps most significantly, the legislation might fail because from a practical point of view, websites have limited abilities to identify users' true ages. However, such legislation would at least slow the speed at which Facebook youngest users' privacy is completely eroded, possibly providing them with enough time to realize how much they might ultimately lose by sharing personal information. | | | | | | The Commission vote to approve the report was 4-0. The full text of the report can be found at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/12/oecd-vwrpt.pdf."
-- BrianS - 10 Dec 2009 | |
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> | I'm sorry, I missed the part where you explained why
there's a first amendment exception for information about children.
Why people can be prohibited from exchanging information they have
legitimately acquired because that information concerns a child I,
with my primitive free speech sensibilities, am unable to comprehend.
Why not take a position that children should be
taught by careful parents and responsible schools to see the issues
for themselves? There are private conversations, like phone and IM,
and there are public places that you get to by crossing the street in
the real world, or being in the web. In public places, we don't give
out information about our private selves; we have a name we use in
that place, and that name is all we tell people about ourselves.
People who ask for more than that about us in public are being
disrespectful, and we politely ignore them. By explaining behavior
in the net the same way we explain behavior in the "real world," we
can teach children to think wisely about the choices they make.
Naturally they do not make all the choices adults make. They do not
have credit cards and they do not buy things to be delivered, which
removes the links that tie an online identity firmly to a located
identity in the "real world." But they do have room within which to
exercise their facility for choosing. As a child I made choices
about my relation to the world--including choices about my life with
computers, and choices about working, in real jobs for actual money.
I was given both information about how to make choices and the
freedom to make my own. The liberty of children is more important
than the liberty of adults, because all human beings know of freedom
they learn when they are children. Too bad it receives in general so
little respect.
Everything children need to know to make themselves
sensible users of their part of the web could be taught interested
twelve-year-olds in a day. We should do it. | | | |
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