Anybody got a pen? Someone should mark this in the calendar as the day I agreed with Michael Arrington. Though he approaches it with his usual deft touch (‘Mice nuts,’ anyone?), he hits the nail squarely on the head regarding online privacy.
A quick re-cap of how we got here: you may remember Facebook changing its privacy settings a few weeks back. Tech geeks were horrified and began deleting their accounts, while your non-techie friends likely posted something in all caps in their status, then moved on. Over the past weekend, Arrington had a quickie Q&A with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and the ensuing headline – Privacy is Dead! – raised everyone’s hackles all over again. This morning, Arrington called us all Luddites for caring. And a good morning to *you* too!
I met with a company a few days ago that deals in data and one of the execs said something I had to scribble down immediately. “Why should your privacy fetish impinge on my need for data usefulness? There is a very real danger here of the tyranny of the minority.” Privacy fetish – I love it.
Arrington raises a very salient point in his post: if you’re a participant in the 21st-century modern world, your privacy has already been compromised past the point of hope. Unless you’re living off the grid in a mud hut – in which case you’re not reading this – ‘they’ know everything about you. So any personal campaigns you’re waging to protect your Facebook quiz results are, well, something of a fetish. Further, as the data exec points out, some very real benefits lie in the exploitation of said data. All the screaming we’re doing about making Google work better and ending the glut of information that’s thrown at us? Not going to be solved without using our personal data.
Now let me beat you to the punch: won’t someone please think of the children? Yes, there is a separate raft of concerns when it comes to kids online. But if you’re under any illusions that ‘they’ know less about your kids simply because they’re small – well you’re wrong about that too.
I realize that it’s out of character for me to say, essentially, “They’ve already won. Just give in.” But I’m afraid that’s the case here. While I’m not advocating you start taking naked pictures of yourself and using them as profile pics, I am saying that if you want to participate in technology as it stands today, you have to let go of a few illusions. And key among them is that you’re currently in control of your online data.
Carla, I think your post skips some key questions between the tinfoil hats, and our-data-is-already-free-get-over-it crowd. Yes, the privacy horse has left the barn, but before we let Google or whomever claim ownership of our horse (really, am I using this metaphor?) let’s take a moment to ask some questions:
Can we at least see our horse after Google or Facebook take it? Do we know what they are doing with it? Have a say in who else gets to ride it? What are they doing to ensure my horse can hang out with other horses that I might want it to?
Okay now that I’ve beaten that metaphor (horse) to death, the point isn’t that this is a battle between Luddites and the elite who argue our quaint notions about privacy are holding us back as a society because we might be holding useful data. There is a need for reasoned debate on how society lets private companies use that data, and what control the user gives up in exchange for seeing pictures of their friends online. Right now, the reflexive angst about privacy should be a precursor to those discussions, not dismissed as harmful.
As bloggers our role should be to help guide those discussions. Perhaps I need to write a series of posts on what happens to your data at Facebook and what that means, or why you might be better off trading your privacy for coupons on select foods when you look up a recipe online. Or perhaps I just need to look into mud huts.
There is no doubt, all of our FB email, photos, habits, keywords etc. are being cataloged. Maybe they are having a competition with the NSA to see who can gather more useless info.
Flickr is the one that keeps me up at night. I love the service but don’t like that I am giving away all my creative rights. I could switch but I am up to probably 2000 images and don’t REALLY care I guess…or I would switch to something like smug mug.
Don’t look into mud huts, Stacey. I’d miss your cynicism. My essential point, though, is that it’s way too late to be crying foul – and I think that’s the subtext of Zuckerberg’s comments in his interview.
I either made the point in a recent post or in my head but: the reason the privacy changes got so many people worked up is that it struck a gong of realization as to how much personal info we’ve dumped in Zuckerberg’s lap. And he’s got every right in the world to do whatever the hell he wants with it. I know you’re going to argue he doesn’t, but possession is nine-tenths of ownership. By using a credit card, you’re tacitly agreeing that American Express can track every item you buy and, subsequently, get a reasonably accurate picture of how you live your life. And by rating your books on Visual Bookshelf, you’re giving the same tacit approval to Facebook. Any arguing about the whys and wherefores of it is just detracting from the larger issue: how we move forward and benefit from it.
Outlier – now you’re talking! The issue of creative rights is much more interesting to me. What sort of protections should we put around content we’re willingly putting out to the general public?
And IMHO, Smug Mug is awfully kludgy to work with.
The fact that you think anybody is concerned about their “Facebook quiz results” only proves that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Many, many people use Facebook as more than a way to share nonsensical shit with each other.
And yes, when I’m sending pictures to my family and friends, privacy is indeed an important consideration. Perhaps I don’t want my pictures plastered all over the internet, but my mom would certainly like to see them, yeah?
If you truly think privacy is dead, then let me see you build a page where you post every single email you send and receive. Until you do that, STFU about that which you know nothing about.
If you follow technology, Otto – and it appears that you do – you’ll recognize the quiz result reference as an allusion to the hubbub that arose several months ago, about Facebook quiz developers having access to your personal data. I do, in fact, realize that people use Facebook for more than nonsensical minutia. Which is precisely my point. It is a goldmine of data about a very large portion of the population. Any business person with a modicum of savvy is going to look for a way to use that data.
I don’t actually think privacy is dead. What I do think is that we need to start thinking about it differently.
[...] I learned a good lesson yesterday: when writing about something as contentious and hot-button as online privacy, don’t just dash something off in under 30 minutes. Though I stand by my original thesis, it [...]
Manage everything you do online as if you are conducting a press conference. Web-based actions live forever…
This facebook privacy thing is a constant battle that I think will never reside. Over the last year they have made a lot of changes to privacy. It seems so many companies are after user data. Only yesterday we were discussing who owns any photos you upload? I feel the person who the photo is of, but if they never uploaded it how do they get access to remove it. Things go viral and before you know it a photo could be on 5,000 different computers around the world.
As the saying goes if you would not let your parent see the photo it should not be on the internet!