With over 400 million global users and more than 25 billion user created news stories, blog posts and photo albums shared, the world's largest social network is massive, but it's also causing all manner of privacy concerns.
Initially designed as a student university friend-finder, the site has been the focus of numerous concerns over privacy. Recently, four US senators made their objections known to Facebook when it came to protecting personal data. Only last month, Facebook reclassified data that was once only seen as 'private' into publicly available information.
But the biggest thing to remember about Facebook is that your data is not, unlike the bulk of websites online - considered private by default. And in some key cases, you might need to opt-out of certain features that might expose your personal preferences.
According to a Computerworld report, the full Facebook privacy agreement contains 5,531 words - slightly more than the time it takes to click 'I agree'. In all, reports Computerworld, there are 11 separate data categories that need your attention when it comes to privacy settings on Facebook.
Here are six privacy concerns Facebook users should be aware of.
1) That annoying security hole that keeps on popping up
It seems that each month that goes by, another potentially privacy-killing security issue is discovered, promptly fixed, patched and then buried - as though nothing ever happened. The latest of these privacy flaws is the so-called 'chat bug', which recently gave some Facebook users the opportunity to see private chats taking place between friends.
TechCrunch has reported that the security flaw was made possible through the 'Preview My Profile' function available on a user's privacy page. It's a little ironic considering that the very page that is responsible for individual privacy settings also gave users the option to invade the privacy of others.
In addition to the chat problem, users were also able to view pending friend requests - which could be slightly embarrassing if you were to see just how many people an ex-partner was trying to friend. As a consequence of the privacy gaffe, Facebook temporarily disabled the chat window.
2) Hitting the "like" button
In April this year, Facebook announced at the 2010 F8 developer conference that they would be placing a great deal of emphasis on the Open Graph protocol. Open Graph gives Facebook an opportunity to become more aware of users' interests, preferences and 'likes' and then put a dollar value on those things.
The 'like' function, which allows you to flag the content you like, will bring in money for Facebook. The company will sell this data to marketers and businesses keen to promote those products most related to your interests - even those based on your page searches, for example.
3) Tagged photos
If there are things on Facebook you really don't want others to see, now might be the perfect time to review those tagged photos, especially those inappropriate drunk gestures of goodwill, that are mostly enjoyed by your inner circle of friends - but probably not your future boss.
Given photo tagging has become something of a cultural norm on Faceboo - but the tag-once, forget about it later approach is now coming back to haunt some users. For example, that provocative fancy dress costume might not be so hilarious when it's posted in the local newspaper, as it happened for two school teachers from Warwick High School in Queensland in March this year.
The solution? Perhaps the only effective way around all this is to manually un-tag each and every photo of yourself or at the very least, think twice about using your real name on Facebook (using a pseudonym instead).
Another concern is that Face.com has released an API to software developers who are keen to use facial detection technology on their own websites.
That would, in effect, turn the entire internet to a photo tagger, with the potential for Google and Facebook to come in, apply search data to those faces and turn our pictures into marketing data or a really easy way for others to find and collate pictures of us online. Face.com already has 50 million tagged users on its database.
4) Facebook IDs for sale
Security researchers from VeriSign iDefense reported this month that 1.5 million Facebook accounts have been made available for sale in a web forum, apparantly by someone who goes by the name 'kirllos' and is said to have already sold 700,000 accounts. You also might be disappointed to learn that for Facebook accounts will less than 10 contacts, the going rate is about 0.025 cents for each of these accounts (purchased in groups of 1000 at a time) and slightly more for those accounts with more than 10 contacts.
Like other forms of ID sought after by scammers, Facebook accounts can sometimes provide key data about an individual including their date of birth, place of birth and marital status. And by searching through older message posts, valuable address and mobile phone data could be obtained, if for example, you've sent asa messaking a friend to call you on 0XXXXXXXX at XX ADDRESS. If you put the information out there, it's possible for others to intercept it.
Avoiding the pitfalls of having hackers break into your account might be a good place to start. A typical money scam involves friends of a friend asking for money while trapped overseas. Malware and Trojans downloaded in fake emails and from unverified downloads may contribute to your chances of having your Facebook account compromised.
5) Advertisers
A major privacy concern hit the headlines three years ago, relating to Facebook's Beacon advertising model, which provided advertisers with an opportunity to seize on a user's personal interest data, via a small piece of JavaScript imbedded on the vendor's website and sent out to the user as 'alerts'. If a user clicked on the alert, the user would then let Facebook know when and how often they surfed the advertiser's website. It was a pain to opt out of difficult to apply privacy controls to on an individual basis.
In December 2007, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised to Facebook users after complaints that it was violating their privacy. A class action lawsuit was filed in August, the following year and Facebook later settled for US$9.5million.
6) Connections: tell the world what you really like
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been a vocal critic of Facebook in the past and the new 'connections' function announced recently, has triggered more warnings.
Connections is Facebook's new way of collating highly marketable personal data into one place. That, says the EFF, includes your work history, hobbies, interests and your education: the type of social indicators advertisers crave. Now all these details, once private, are to made public.
This gives data miners a ripe opportunity to find out what millions of Facebook users like and why they like it, without ever needing to be a friend to find out. The EFF claims Facebook will continue to store and use your connections data, even after you have deleted those preferences.
And perhaps most disturbing of all, is that Facebook will not respect your old privacy settings in this transition to connections data. You cannot opt out. It's the Facebook way or the internet highway, says the EFF.
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