>"He has created a network that is first and foremost a gold mine for government surveillance and advertisers."
It would be nice for more people to realize this. Really, they're lining up like sheep for government monitoring, and Zuckerberg and Co. are happy to comply. FB seems thrilled with the prospect of being the eyes and ears of Big Brother, actually.
Except they didn't make any money, which is the sad irony of the whole situation. Yes, there are likely many others out there willing to do the work, but the fact that H&W, a DoJ-recommended firm, turned to HBGary et al, who didn't have any real experience doing what they said they could, suggests that this isn't something the gov't is doing regularly...yet.
I'm not saying Facebook employees or executives would literally take pleasure in enabling government surveillance, if that's what you're asking for evidence about.
Recently Twitter was the only large internet company of several to challenge a government request for data. We rarely hear about Facebook, Google, Yahoo or really anyone refusing requests for data, while at the same time there have been reports about the vast amount of requests the FBI and other agencies have made under the Patriot Act. The depth and type of information that Facebook has about so many individuals must be highly desirable to many agencies.
People should just read more. Everything is in Facebook's terms and privacy policy, isn't it? If you can't agree with the terms of service, then you shouldn't use the service IMO.
This mentality should also extend to any sites using the "Like" button...they should all be mentioning that they (and their affiliates) place cookies on your system.
Right from Time's privacy policy:
We use cookies to understand Internet usage and to improve our content, offerings and advertisements. For example, we may use cookies to personalize your experience at our web pages (e.g., to recognize you by name when you return to our site), save your password in password-protected areas and enable you to use shopping carts on our sites. We also may use cookies to offer you products, programs or services. Similarly, as part of an arrangement with our business partners (including, those who present or serve the advertisements that you see on our web pages) we may also access cookies placed by others and allow others to access certain cookies placed by us.
We may also use small pieces of code such as "web beacons" or "clear gifs" to collect anonymous and aggregate advertising metrics, such as counting page views, promotion views or advertising responses. These "web beacons" may be used to deliver cookies that conform to our cookie policy. For more information regarding cookies, please click here.
If you're not cool with that, stop visiting the site or disable your cookies. ;)
This is a good point. I'd imagine that if enough users cared about these sorts of privacy issues then traffic would end up declining enough that companies would have to either dismiss Facebook or Facebook would have to stop tracking users. I personally don't see that happening, except for maybe an uprising of a small minority of users. In which case we have to ask, does this stuff actually matter at all?
If most people don't care or are ignorant of whether they're being "tracked" then does it even matter?
I suppose that if this stuff matters to you, you'll have to just maintain a white-list of sites that you'll allow cookies for... hell, maybe it'll be up to the browser companies to bring this sort of issue to the forefront by touting the idea of cookies being disabled by default as a privacy feature.
Edit: Or maybe this issue is already being covered by some browser extensions a la Ghostery and the ilk. I guess it means that if you care enough about it, it's up to you to protect yourself.
It would be nice for more people to realize this. Really, they're lining up like sheep for government monitoring, and Zuckerberg and Co. are happy to comply. FB seems thrilled with the prospect of being the eyes and ears of Big Brother, actually.