Online privacy is a major issue in the social media landscape these days. What we have witnessed in the past few months has brought the privacy issue to the forefront. I suppose it all started with Google’s implementation of personalized search in 2009. Even though Google had been monitoring and compiling user behavior for quite some time, personalized search raised red flags for many Google users. In reality, the results we receive from personalized search are not so different. As long as the information is not sold to third parties, I am all for receiving more relevant search engine results.
The launch and privacy issue with Google Buzz deserves a blog post of its own, so I won’t even go there now.
Foursquare is another application that raises the same types of concerns but at a much more “local” level. Websites, such as PleaseRobMe.com scared many would potential users away from Foursquare. The PleaseRobMe website garnered so much attention and a strong response from Foursquare that it no longer publishes its list of vacant homes.
Foursquare has become a phenomenon. Its user count hit the one million mark in just one year, while it took Twitter 2 years to reach the same level (though Twitter now has over 100 million worldwide users). I must admit that I was a hold out early on when it came to Foursquare, as I recently mentioned in a blog post compiled by fellow team leads of AREA203‘s new media team. Since then, I have become an avid user and see the huge potential for brick and mortar businesses that choose to participate with Foursquare. The recent announcement regarding Pennsylvania’s partnership with Foursquare is a perfect example of the advantages provided by Foursquare. As an early hold out myself, I do understand the concerns of people worried about the location-based information published on Foursquare. A word of advice: just like Facebook, I suggest only “friending” people on Foursquare whom you know or converse with in the social realm. Just be smart about it.
Alas, the big daddy of privacy concerns today is most definitely Facebook. Facebook’s privacy changes created a mass backlash from the Facebook user community, so much so that Facebook was forced to make changes to the usability of the privacy settings platform. Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg released a video on May 26 describing these changes:
Personally, I understand why Facebook would want its user community to be more public (which is a direct reaction to the explosive growth and public nature of Twitter), but I do believe the backlash could have been avoided had Facebook taken a more proactive approach by announcing and clearly defining the changes before they were launched. For me, Facebook is a tool for me to interact with a small group of close friends. For that reason, any information I post on Facebook is visible only to my friend list and no one else.
With the privacy issue so prevalent now, I would love to hear what your thoughts are.Tweet
