For those who have been following the less-than-perfect model Facebook has slowly been building this is no surprise. Simply Google (irony there to be understood shortly) "site:www.fsf.org facebook" to see how far back the scrutiny on Facebook's privacy issues has been monitored by the Free Software Foundation. They are but one of many watchdog groups who saw this coming years before the big reveal thanks to the recent Presidential election. In fact, in 2010 alone thousands of articles can be found discussing Facebook and their seeming unethical collection of user information, put in contrast with Time's assignment of Mark Zuckerberg as Man of the Year in their Dec/Jan 2010 issue.
But of course, Facebook is only one of several commercially-motivated companies who do this. Simply Google (ahem) "site:www.fsf.org google" to see how far back the scrutiny on Google's privacy issues has been monitored by the Free Software Foundation. While Google has a slightly different profile as relates to user privacy issues in comparison to Facebook, again, we who have been following these stories for a decade or more are in no way surprised.
My call to all users of applications made by companies who make billions of dollars in ad revenue, or "special interest" investments, is simply to read the fine print and case studies on incidents like those Facebooks is currently embroiled in. Is this something you want to be a part of? Do you really need Facebook, Google or similar applications that have full access to your data and computing habits?
Happy hacking...
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