Juan Carlos Mendez
Katrina Newsom
English 1020
December 10, 2011
The solution
Social networking sites are really popular among teens and adults. Everyone is familiar
with social networking sites, it does not matter whether they have an account or not. It serves as
a way of keeping in contact with friends or even finding friends that one has not seen in a long
time. Over the last few years these social networking sites have become a big thing ranging from
teens to adults. However, as this social networking social sites become more popular so does the
attacks on these sites. Over the last few years attacks on these social networking sites have
become more common and harder to protect against, but that has not stopped companies like
Facebook and MySpace from trying. Yet not all the users fell their information is secured and
wonder if Facebook or MySpace are really trying to secure such vital information. Facebook and
MySpace have both dealt with legal issues regarding privacy settings, however, both of those
sites were trying to correct the problem not make it worse. Facebook works hard to try to keep
the users information secured, but even with all the new privacy settings the user information
still manages to get released. While MySpace changed its privacy settings like Facebook did but
the difference was that MySpace had actually given away information about the users’ to
companies. Facebook on the other hand tries to have better security against hackers so that
information does not get released, but unveiling a new feature to its site this year that
automatically tags people in a photo does not help the cause and has become a major concern for
users. Users should not have to worry about people knowing who they are if they have limited
friends, but with this new feature that automatically tags the user in a photo without the users
consent makes the user feel unsafe. If a user wants to be tagged in a photo he or she can tag it or
if a friend tags then just remove it, but automatically getting tag in a photo is not something
anyone wants. Companies like Facebook and MySpace have come up with new ways to protect
the users information, but because of the tracking data, the attacks on this social networking sites
and the loss of personal information the user should therefore, be allowed to have full control of
what he or she shares.
. Facebook has become one of the biggest if not the biggest social networking site
worldwide, but with all the problems Facebook has had to deal with one would not be surprised
if Facebook actually ended up losing members. One of the many reasons would have been the
tracking that has taken place in Facebook and after one leaves Facebook page. However, “In
September Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announced a major overhaul of the
website that encourages users to post more information about their lives. It also introduced new
privacy controls that it said give users "total control" over who can access what information.”
But, as an already known fact Facebook will never give “total control” to the users’ especially
after promoting that users’ should be more open on Facebook, that they should talk more about
what goes on in their lives. "We are always trying to make Facebook better for the people who
use it which means we sometimes need to make updates. All of our changes have been designed
to give people more control over what they share and make it easier for you to understand who
can see your content across Facebook.” Not everyone believes that the new updates make it
easier on the users’ ability to navigate Facebook; in fact some of the new things on Facebook
make it more challenging to see the users’ friends’ updates. It does not matter if it sounds good,
because most time than not the “new thing” ends up affecting the user instead of helping.
Although Facebook has made several changes to its site and its privacy settings just like
MySpace, both of their sites do not protect the users’ privacy very well, I contend that the cause
of this that both site requires personal information from users when creating an account, and both
then releases the personal information of the user. One of the reasons could be according to Joan
Goodchild, “Every time Facebook redesigns the site, which [usually] happens a few times a year,
it puts your privacy settings back to a default in which, essentially, all of your information is
made public. It is up to you, the user, to check the privacy settings and decide what you want to
share and what you don't want to share.”
When information gets released is usually from the users and Facebook tries to cover the
problem to the best of their ability, because they do not want the media reporting the problem all
over the news. However, one might wonder if the information is getting out why put it? To
create an account the person is required to place valuable information, it may not appear on the
profile, but the server has the information about the user. When sites like Facebook and
MySpace get attacked are not because they want to damage them, they just want to obtain the
user information so that it can be sold to companies.
Spam is one of the biggest issues with Facebook due to the fact that people create fake
accounts just to spam other users’ and those who fail to notice are the ones who get affected the
most. Spam does not end with fake accounts but with some malicious ads that Facebook fails to
identify, therefore, some users end up with a virus or in some site that steals the users’
information. According to Hayley Tsukayama, “A widespread spam attack on Facebook has
caused violent and pornographic images to be posted on some users’ profile pages, representing
one of the worst security breaches in the young Web site’s history and raising concerns about its
vulnerability to hackers.” When one thinks about it all the attacks are for information nothing
else and the problem for Facebook is that they are the perfect target by being the biggest social
networking site with more than 800 million users’ worldwide. Hackers recently have posted a
bigger treat than anything else, because of the fact that every time they solve a problem a bigger
one appears and that is not the way to go for a company regarded as one of the best. However,
with the constant changes being made to the website at some point there is going to be a mistake
that may eventually lead to the downfall of Facebook. Facebook has gotten away from what it
became known for which a simple, but popular social networking site. With all the changes
going on it feels harder to keep up and even harder to keep the privacy settings in check. When a
business has success it does not mean that if it changes is going to keep having the same success
and as history has shown not all business are meant to expand. A problem that has raised a lot of
concern with the users is the tracking. Nobody likes being tracked, because that is an invasion of
privacy even if Facebook says that they did not do anything with the data it still raises people
doubts on whether Facebook is really a safe site. Facebook on the other hand can say that it just
to help make their site better, but in reality they are just making the users madder. “Facebook
also keeps close track of where millions more non-members of the social network go on the
Web, after they visit a Facebook web page for any reason.” Nobody wants to get tracked, but to
find out that everyone gets tracked including the non-members just by going to the Facebook site
and that definitely raises a red flag for anyone that is thinking of going to the Facebook page.
Facebook maintain that they are protecting the users’ privacy, but really they are tracking what
one does, where they go all kinds of things that one is not aware of and for this reason, one
should be worried. After an interview with Facebook thru email and phone this is what they said:
The company compiles tracking data in different ways for members who have
signed in and are using their accounts, for members who are logged-off and for
non-members. The tracking process begins when you initially visit a
facebook.com page. If you choose to sign up for a new account, Facebook inserts
two different types of tracking cookies in your browser, a "session cookie" and a
"browser cookie." If you choose not to become a member, and move on, you only
get the browser cookie.
The worst part about getting tracked is that the information Facebook gathers can not
only be harmful to the user, but to none users as well. When a user joins a Facebook or a
MySpace the last thing they are expecting is to get tracked, not just only during the time the user
is logged in but also when he or she log out. Facebook also said:
From this point on, each time you visit a third-party webpage that has a Facebook
Like button, or other Facebook plug-in, the plug-in works in conjunction with the
cookie to alert Facebook of the date, time and web address of the webpage you've
clicked to. The unique characteristics of your PC and browser, such as your IP
address, screen resolution, operating system and browser version, are also
recorded.
The internet is filled with information, but what people do not know is that in some sites
cookies are planted into the person’s computer to track just like Facebook does with anyone that
visits their page. However, that is not the only thing Facebook does, the browser, IP address,
screen resolution, type of operating system and what type of computer the person has are also
recorded into their system. One might wonder how long does Facebook track the person?
Facebook has a log that last up to 90 days adding a every website the person visits, of course if
the person does not go into Facebook for more than 90 days the cookies will no longer track that
certain person. However, no one is going to want to go to a site where they can only go once
every 90 days so they do not get tracked. Facebook may deny it, but the thing is people will start
leaving Facebook if they do not remove the tracking cookies. “Facebook thus compiles a running
log of all your webpage visits for 90 days, continually deleting entries for the oldest day and
adding the newest to this log.” One may not understand, but when companies get information
from this social networking sites whether is by a leak, gets stolen, or whatever the case maybe
sites like Facebook, MySpace and all of the other ones get hit hard with law suits and bad media.
One may think that they are pretty hard on these social networking sites with all the information
that they need to handle it would be normal for some of it to go public, but it should not happen.
When is a company that is known throughout the world and handles the information of 800
million users’ that trust the site to keep their personal information hidden things like leaks are not
acceptable. People rely on these sites to keep their personal information stored away from the
public. The main problem is that Facebook does not want to relinquish their complete control to
the users as they thing that the users will stop posting. However, that may not be the case the
only difference would be that the user can then decide who is allowed to see their information
and how much and also the user would be better protected when hackers attack Facebook or
MySpace. Facebook and MySpace are responsible for both dealing with an attack to their site
and the safety of the users’ private information. Their times when Facebook looks like it cannot
do both and the result is information gets out when it shouldn’t had happen. By Facebook giving
the power to the user the chances of the users information getting releases decreases
significantly.
Facebook wants people share to even though they might give the users full control on
how much they want to share, but enough control that people share what they want. Facebook
needs users to share so that companies design better ads for the users to see when they are on
Facebook. Having more people join Facebook helps them profit even more considering it does
not charge the people for joining, they gain the money thru the ads so the more Facebook has the
more expensive the ads become. As Barbara Ortutay said, “The more time people spend on its
site and the more information they share about themselves, the better companies can target their
ads. The more users Facebook attracts, the more people will see the ads so the more it can charge
advertisers.” The malicious ads are becoming more centered to the younger generations, less
web savvy teens. With that said, Facebook has shown inability to deal with issues as it has
required long periods of time to remove these sort of treats.
Facebook needs to improve its problems when it comes to hackers; hackers have left a
big question mark on Facebook making them look like they are unable to do anything about it.
The only real solution would be to literally give the users’ complete control and not just say that
they are getting more control with every update. If Facebook is going to want people to openly
share about their lives without second thoughts they are going to need to make them comfortable
users’ will need to know the site is secured and would not put at risk even greater information
about the user. Facebook can be a really better site than what it is right now, it just needs to stop
with the little tweaks and not focus so much on how to make the site look better because all they
are doing is messing it up instead of leaving it simple.
Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace made new changes to be better
protected; however, because of the tracking data, the attacks on this social networking sites and
the loss of personal information the user should have complete control over what he or she shares
on Facebook. Facebook and MySpace had to deal with a lot of issues, mainly Facebook who has
been attacked, spammed and even sued. Facebook believes that with the new changes the people
will be able to share more because they now have “total control” one however, knows that the
user will never truly have complete control, even if it might seem that why. These social
networking sites have been so busy with new updates and new settings that they forgot how they
started. People do not like complicated things and some of new things do not make it any easier
if at all, it actually looks a lot harder to understand it, when really it should not be hard. One of
the primary reasons why Facebook gets attacked to so much is because of how many users’ it has
and hackers like companies take advantage of that to try to get as much information as possible.
Facebook has shown that it can deal with the treat, but not without some difficulty. Not everyone
may understand what Facebook does to keep most of the hackers, spammers, etc. from
Facebook, but the one thing that one does know is that private information should be kept private
and not just let someone else be in charge of information that can affect the user. As a user the
best way to keep safe vital information is if the user itself is in charge, otherwise why stay if the
one does not have control of their own information.
Works Cited
Acohido, Byron. "Facebook Tracking Is under Scrutiny â USATODAY.com."
News, Travel, Weather, Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World –
USATODAY.com. 16 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2011-11-15/facebook-privacy-trackingdata/51225112/1>.
"Facebook Users 'can't Keep up with Privacy Changes' - Telegraph."
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph Online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph
- Telegraph. 04 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8868065/Facebook-users-cant-keepup-with-privacy-changes.html>.
"Five Hidden Dangers of Facebook (Q&A) | Security - CNET News." Technology
News - CNET News. 08 May 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20004511-83.html>.
Tsukayama, Hayley. "Facebook Hack Raises Security Concerns - The Washington
Post." Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis.
15 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebook-hack-raises-securityconcerns/2011/11/15/gIQAqCyYPN_story.html>.