forget about just the applications, facebook itself is a privacy nightmare!

[...] my colleague Lawrence notes in his latest blog, the potential abuse of personal data shared by users in social networking spaces is of increasing [...]

An emerging area of interest, for the privacy community at least, is the applicability of international privacy legislation to web-based services based in the United States.

Users and developers working out of the United States seem to forget (or don’t know) that many other countries, including Canada and all of Europe, have relatively strict data protection regimes in place.

This is the answer to your question: in these jurisdictions, companies DO have an obligation to spell out how they will guarantee the privacy of their users.

Lawrence, you bring up a very interesting and relevant topic, and I enjoyed your analysis of online privacy. I would love to hear your thoughts regarding privacy beyond internet-based network websites. I’m sure we’ve all been through the “how on earth did they receive my contact information?” (e.g. headhunting firms, credit card companies, etc) Would be great to see if you had any more thoughts on how to protect yourself from unintentionally providing too much information.

Simeon, I agree with you to an extent. I believe that Facebook can be used without privacy issues as long users are informed of all the possible ways that their information can be obtained by unknown parties.

As an avid Facebook user, I have been prompted with the “Allow this application to…” message numerous times. Each time I get the box, I re-evaluate the application and decide whether I really want to grant this application access to all of my information. The majority of the time, I find that these applications are not worth it – in fact, I probably only have one or two additional applications added to my profile. If Facebook users do not want their information to be accessed by the application developers, then they also should not add the applications. However, I do believe that businesses should be required to explicitly state privacy issues for users; however, once stated…user beware…

Interesting discussion on the move from traditional to web-based software. I think because of the globalization of our economy, it will become (or already is) necessary for businesses and people to use technology such as the internet to keep up with the ever-changing environment. So businesses do have the obligation to adequately educate their users on the issue of privacy because the companies need the users, and the users need the companies. And neither can work together if there are any remaining issues such as privacy concerns.

I have read that it takes forever and a lot of phone calls to FB HQ to delete your information from their servers permanently. However I think all their shenanigans (online social sites) only deter the paranoid and the casual internet users aren’t aware enough to create a back lash until they are personally affected negatively in some way.

Privacy is an illusion and has been for decades. All one has to do is look at how court interpretations of the meaning of “reasonable expectation of privacy” has become narrower and narrower through the years. Regardless of how attractive the concept of privacy is to people in the abstract, or how visceral their reaction is to the intrusion of “privacy” when they hear about it, the reality is that people are more than eager to hand over confidential personal information for the sake of personal convenience. Cf. when credit cards first sprung up people were decrying the end of privacy too.

[...] Privacy Concerns with Facebook Applications [...]

Its Simple Facebook is so secure.I think we dont have to bother about security