In week 5 of the course, we discussed the issues of privacy, and mainly the privacy statements made by Facebook. We also had a brief look at statement made by Mark Zuckerberg, as he was discussing how the new Facebook privacy tools made it easier for people to set their own privacy statuses for their individual pages, and thus, would greater encourage the sharing information between people. I find that Facebook’s Privacy tools are more than sufficient in the control of information shown between users, however, those who complain about the lax privacy security, I believe are just not educating themselves enough. I think it might be expected by users that sites, such as Facebook, set up the individual’s privacy settings automatically. However, the fact that these sites allow users to change these setting themselves, gives me greater confidence in what information I’m sharing.
On another privacy-related note, a few weeks ago, it was found that Apple were using their iPhones in order to track users’ locations. This, to me, should be given more time in the papers than Facebook’s privacy issues, as the company is doing this under all of their consumers’ noses. The link I provided states that a lawsuit was enactioned against Apple for these actions, however, I have been unable to find the results of the lawsuit.
The two examples of privacy issues discussed above show two different types of issues with privacy. However, I find that the first one is more of an issue with consumers than with the companies behind the product, and that more focus should be given to privacy breaches such as the Apple case, as this is a clear violation of people’s private lives.
rinaldhooosterman 