News - All users to be searchable in Facebook as privacy setting axed

[ZaO]

I don't tend to consider anything on their private, apart from the direct messages to other friends on there (although the NSA etc can probably read all of them without issue if they wanted to).

In general I don't post anything, and even if I do it's nothing that I'm worried about other people knowing really.

yes. best practice with all websites these days to be honest. but google and fb are probably ones to be most careful with at the moment.

[zdn1042]

As long as strangers can't peek into my profile, I think it's okay.

[Saracen]

yes. best practice with all websites these days to be honest. but google and fb are probably ones to be most careful with at the moment.

True enough.

But, of course, most websites don't make it a condition of use that you provide, and keep updated, personal information like real name and address, and make it a breach of T&Cs if you provide misleading information. HEXUS, for example, doesn't require real name, and doesn't require any address as part of normal membership, and as a result, can't match profiles to actual, real people unless you provide information by choice, like as a competition winner.

Of course, if you buy mail-order from, say, Scan, you'll be supplying name, address, credit card detsils etc, but it's kinda hard to deliver to you without knowing who you are, and even then, Scan etc are bound by some fairly stringent EU-wide data protection laws, but anyone signing up for Facebook also, of course, voluntarily waives such protections by agreeing to FBs use of your data, and more worryingly, to your data being exported outside the EU's borders, and hence, outside such protection.

[ZaO]

True enough.

But, of course, most websites don't make it a condition of use that you provide, and keep updated, personal information like real name and address, and make it a breach of T&Cs if you provide misleading information. HEXUS, for example, doesn't require real name, and doesn't require any address as part of normal membership, and as a result, can't match profiles to actual, real people unless you provide information by choice, like as a competition winner.

Of course, if you buy mail-order from, say, Scan, you'll be supplying name, address, credit card detsils etc, but it's kinda hard to deliver to you without knowing who you are, and even then, Scan etc are bound by some fairly stringent EU-wide data protection laws, but anyone signing up for Facebook also, of course, voluntarily waives such protections by agreeing to FBs use of your data, and more worryingly, to your data being exported outside the EU's borders, and hence, outside such protection.

Yeh that's it man. I generally use my real details on sites where I buy/sell things. I don't mind exchanging details when I do business with someone. But when it's not for business purposes, no one gets my details if I can help it. Facebook want everything to be public. Whenever you upload a profile pic it defaults to public everytime, regardless of your privacy settings. I don't upload pics of myself to facebook. But other people have uploaded pics with me in, and their pics have been defaulted to public by default. Because most people just use "default everything" all time it means that anyone can see these pics. Facebook know what they're doing. I hate them.

[Saracen]

Yeh that's it man. I generally use my real details on sites where I buy/sell things. I don't mind exchanging details when I do business with someone. But when it's not for business purposes, no one gets my details if I can help it. Facebook want everything to be public. Whenever you upload a profile pic it defaults to public everytime, regardless of your privacy settings. I don't upload pics of myself to facebook. But other people have uploaded pics with me in, and their pics have been defaulted to public by default. Because most people just use "default everything" all time it means that anyone can see these pics. Facebook know what they're doing. I hate them.

Agree with that. It's the insidious nature of privacy erosion on the net, which is that no matter how careful you or I are about uploading information about ourselves, we gave no control over what others upload. Far, FAR worse than Facebook, to my mind, are 'contact' lists on smartphones because so many "free" (and not a small number if paid for) apps require access for absolutely no purpose relevant to the app itself. They are a privacy nightmare.

[aramil]

Agree with that. It's the insidious nature of privacy erosion on the net, which is that no matter how careful you or I are about uploading information about ourselves, we gave no control over what others upload. Far, FAR worse than Facebook, to my mind, are 'contact' lists on smartphones because so many "free" (and not a small number if paid for) apps require access for absolutely no purpose relevant to the app itself. They are a privacy nightmare.

Yeah reminds me of a current just updated tv guide android app that wanted full access to phone book, ALL logs & location services........... it's a tv guide.......... strangely enough I did not update....

[ZaO]

Agree with that. It's the insidious nature of privacy erosion on the net, which is that no matter how careful you or I are about uploading information about ourselves, we gave no control over what others upload. Far, FAR worse than Facebook, to my mind, are 'contact' lists on smartphones because so many "free" (and not a small number if paid for) apps require access for absolutely no purpose relevant to the app itself. They are a privacy nightmare.

yeh definitely. google just don't seem to care about moderating apps either. but then, why would i trust a company like google to do that anyway lol.. smart phones are where it's at for the best info sniffing i agree. the facebook app checks your position via gps REALLY frequently. i also notice when some of my friends message me it tells me what town they're sending the message from! they don't even realise it's doing that! this is a whole nother level of privacy and security issues for people. it's really dangerous!

[Saracen]

Yeah reminds me of a current just updated tv guide android app that wanted full access to phone book, ALL logs & location services........... it's a tv guide.......... strangely enough I did not update....

Quite so. But not updating may not help you a lot.

Put it this way. DataMining Ltd gets some data on you from the old app, creates a record for you and gives it a unique (key) identifier. If they can subsequently match data from ANY source to that identifier, all relevant data can be linked. That data may include home and mobile phone numbers, from friends contact lists, perhaps work number (now they know where you work), quite possibly home address, so they know relatives, friends, etc.

And once they've got you at all, this other data can come in dribs and drabs from people other than you. How about reward cards in supermarkets? Or cashback websites? That gives a potentially HUGE insight into your life, like whether you have kids, your income level, what your hobbies are, and it doesn't take much to add where and how often you holiday, what car you drive, what your grocery budget is, and all that points at income group.

There's been a lot of hoopla recently about privacy intrusion from the NSA, GCHQ, etc, and yes, it's a concern, but to my mind, nothing remotely resembling the level (or at the very least, potential level) of intrusion from corporates, small, large and vast, some of whose sole reason for existing is to datamine you, me and every other person on earth, and they usually do it without our permission, probably without our knowledge, and often by deceptive or misleading mechanisms (like "loyalty" cards).

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go, I seem to have misplaced my tinfoil hat. Again.

[Saracen]

yeh definitely. google just don't seem to care about moderating apps either. but then, why would i trust a company like google to do that anyway lol.. smart phones are where it's at for the best info sniffing i agree. the facebook app checks your position via gps REALLY frequently. i also notice when some of my friends message me it tells me what town they're sending the message from! they don't even realise it's doing that! this is a whole nother level of privacy and security issues for people. it's really dangerous!

Agreed.

But what can you do about it?

I don't have a mobile phone, and the above is a major part of the reason why not. I have a tablet, but rarely take it out of the house, have GPS disabled, am very fussy about what apps I install, and have put absolutely NO personal data on it. No names, addresses, contacts, email addresses, NOTHING.

It restricts the usefulness of the device (no using calendars or diaries, etc, for example). It's basically a glorified web browser, and even that gives away some info about me.

But .... how many people will take it that far? My guess is, not many.

Some people don't care about privacy, and fair enough. If that were an explicit choice we could all make, and our individual wishes were respected, I'd have no issue with it.

Some people, of course, don't understand what, for example, loyalty cards or app permissions imply, and that lack of knowledge is ruthlessly abused, IMHO. And even those of us that do know what can, and often does, happen, and violently object, STILL can't entirely avoid it, short of going entirely off-grid, and living in a Tibetan monastry, or a cave in a remote mountain range.

It's how, thanks to those corporates, the world now is, and all we can do as individuals us to keep our heads down as far as we can. And live with it. I'm glad I'm of an age where I'm not likely to live long enough to see where this goes.

[ZaO]

Agreed.

But what can you do about it?

I don't have a mobile phone, and the above is a major part of the reason why not. I have a tablet, but rarely take it out of the house, have GPS disabled, am very fussy about what apps I install, and have put absolutely NO personal data on it. No names, addresses, contacts, email addresses, NOTHING.

It restricts the usefulness of the device (no using calendars or diaries, etc, for example). It's basically a glorified web browser, and even that gives away some info about me.

But .... how many people will take it that far? My guess is, not many.

Some people don't care about privacy, and fair enough. If that were an explicit choice we could all make, and our individual wishes were respected, I'd have no issue with it.

Some people, of course, don't understand what, for example, loyalty cards or app permissions imply, and that lack of knowledge is ruthlessly abused, IMHO. And even those of us that do know what can, and often does, happen, and violently object, STILL can't entirely avoid it, short of going entirely off-grid, and living in a Tibetan monastry, or a cave in a remote mountain range.

It's how, thanks to those corporates, the world now is, and all we can do as individuals us to keep our heads down as far as we can. And live with it. I'm glad I'm of an age where I'm not likely to live long enough to see where this goes.

i feel the same man. i got rid of my phone recently for these reasons. but i ended up getting another one after a couple weeks. i wanted to put a custom, google free (or free from google should i say..) rom on it. but didn't research enough. looks like there isn't one for my model. i use a fake name on it n all but i'm sure google will no who i am by my contacts, phone number, ip address etc..

the most important issue here is the choice in the matter as you say. it's being snooped on without being clearly notified and having a choice about it that is so wrong. yet somehow it's allowed to happen. that makes you have to think about who's benefiting from this. corps get to perv on our lives in exchange for sharing the info with higher powers. seems logical. the only people waring tinfoil hats are the ones who don't think this is possible and don't think that it happens. people have been warning us about this for years, but of course, they're crazy right.. then it gets blown up so big that it makes mainstream media in a way where even they can't completely lie about it like normal. because it would be too obvious, even to the ones who are ignorant to all these things. if those people still don't get it after edward snowden basically sacrificed himself like jesus to show us the truth. then god help us i guess. i'm not religious or anything, those words just seemed to work!

[Stringent]

Some people, of course, don't understand what, for example, loyalty cards or app permissions imply, and that lack of knowledge is ruthlessly abused, IMHO. And even those of us that do know what can, and often does, happen, and violently object, STILL can't entirely avoid it, short of going entirely off-grid, and living in a Tibetan monastry, or a cave in a remote mountain range.

Sounds good. Can learn some form of kung fu, and come back as a Batman ...

Also you forget, your face is photographed more or less whenever you walk into a store, Big Brother CCTV cameras all over the place. Bank Cards? Your finances and what you spend are tracked. So unless you get paid in cash and keep it in a sock draw your accounts are all tied up together. There is no such thing as privacy any more. The most we can do is minimise things as much as possible, or make them work for you.

Out of all the Social Networks FB is the worst. Which is the reason I didn't sign up. TBH, Google+ has some nice communities, but even contemplating closing that and shifting my email service to Outlook the way Google is going.

[Saracen]

Sounds good. Can learn some form of kung fu, and come back as a Batman ...

Also you forget, your face is photographed more or less whenever you walk into a store, Big Brother CCTV cameras all over the place. Bank Cards? Your finances and what you spend are tracked. So unless you get paid in cash and keep it in a sock draw your accounts are all tied up together. There is no such thing as privacy any more. The most we can do is minimise things as much as possible, or make them work for you.

Out of all the Social Networks FB is the worst. Which is the reason I didn't sign up. TBH, Google+ has some nice communities, but even contemplating closing that and shifting my email service to Outlook the way Google is going.

Agree that privacy is non-existent, though (inmodern times) it never was entirely existent. The slider has slid heavily towards the 'no privacy' side in the last couple of decades, and especially the last few years, though.

I largely agree about banks, and shopping, too. But ..... I have several bank accounts with different banking groups, and this is part of the reason why, though not the whole reason.

And I do buy most things for cash. I do just about enough credit card transactions to keep the cards valid, or when I want Consumer Credit Act protection. And I don't remember the last time I did a supermarket shop other than for cash, but it's certainly many years. Ten, at least, maybe more.

So, not much of my spending is tracked, and no one bank has full data on my finances. In fact, all of them together don't have a full picture.

As for CCTV in shops (and outside, for that matter), there's not much I can do about that, short of never leaving home (or adopting the burka). But .... how much does CCTV tell the shop about me? Certainly not who I am, and attaching CCTV images to cash purchasing transactions is pushing it a bit.


It seems to me that any real privacy is a thing of history. We all have to live in the world as it is. But the question is how we choose to live?

We can just surrender to loss of privacy, and give in. Or we can embrace it and take the 40 pieces of silver from store reward schemes and hand over our lives. Or we can do what we reasonably and pragmatically can to preserve as much as we can of privacy, while accepting that total privacy is no longer on offer, if it ever was. And accept the price that that entails.

[theanalyzer]

I actually had some guy from India linked to my email when I tried to open an account. Dunno how that happens.. and after this news I dont think I want to try again.