EU warns on Facebook privacy

[CielOnTap]

Czechs most active users of social platform Facebook

14-01-2010 15:36 | Sarah Borufka

A Czech language version of Facebook only became available a year ago. The social platform allows users to design a profile, add friends, or share personal news. In the Czech Republic, the site is very popular and user numbers have been growing exponentially.

Across the world, the number of people who use the social platform Facebook is growing at a mind-boggling speed. The site counts 350 million active users; 1.7 million pictures are uploaded to the platform 1.8 billion messages are sent over facebook per second. If Facebook was a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest.

In the Czech Republic, the social site is fast growing in popularity. At a “Facebook now” event on Thursday, Blake Chandlee, the company’s Vice President and director for Emerging Markets, explained how users here have been responding to the Czech language version.
http://www.radio.cz/en/article/124057

[CielOnTap]

Worth checking on your account if you did not make changes last month: privacy settings on your Facebook account.

The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now
By SARAH PEREZ of ReadWriteWeb
Published: January 20, 2010
In December, Facebook made a series of bold and controversial changes regarding the nature of its users' privacy on the social networking site. The company once known for protecting privacy to the point of exclusivity (it began its days as a network for college kids only - no one else even had access), now seemingly wants to compete with more open social networks like the microblogging media darling Twitter.

Those of you who edited your privacy settings prior to December's change have nothing to worry about - that is, assuming you elected to keep your personalized settings when prompted by Facebook's "transition tool." The tool, a dialog box explaining the changes, appeared at the top of Facebook homepages this past month with its own selection of recommended settings. Unfortunately, most Facebook users likely opted for the recommended settings without really understanding what they were agreeing to. If you did so, you may now be surprised to find that you inadvertently gave Facebook the right to publicize your private information including status updates, photos, and shared links. Check these settings

[Smitty]

Not sure, but I think many found Face-book or another has been closed down & some seemed quite disturbed. Fortunately it is one of many I do not belong to.

[CielOnTap]

Facebook will allow users to share location
March 09, 2010
New York Times News Service

Starting next month, the more than 400 million Facebook users could begin seeing a new kind of status update flow through their news feed: the current locations of their friends.

Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss unannounced services.

In preparation for the introduction, Facebook updated its privacy policy last November. The new policy states: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/734897

Do you really want people to know where you are? Maybe if you are at a big festival or attraction, but keep the private home stuff offline.

[Smitty]

At our h/gun range one of the executive members came in with his wife to take some photos of us in action, but sensibly asked Who does Not want their picture taken. My Assistant came up with my name, to his own, to his father-in-law to most of the others so possibly a few shots taken, but they spent time of his wife holding a loaded gun, down range, so she might be the one showing up in our Web Page about the Club.

So I am finding out that a lot of fellow Canadains do NOT want their photo taken by others to so many will not have a thing to do with Face-Book, but then so many will as it is a big fad. Like the gun boards I am on along with m/c boards they have all found out that I will not show my picture or a single photo of my m/cs or my h/guns. Show the LONER in me is standing out.

[alohasand]

That was courtesy and awareness that not all want to be public figures while doing their hobby or other activities. Rare person who thinks to say the obvious-asking for permission/people who want to opt out of photos.

When I take photos in public of buildings I like, I try not to get a person in photo or use a distant focus so face etc is blurry.

[Smitty]

Should have mentioned the photos of us in action, at the h/gun section WERE for the Clubs new Web sight I should have menioned, bu seems most of us do not want to have our photos taken even if we knew it or sort of posed for it as the stob would go off & a photo or two would be enough to disturbe the actual shooting at the time.

[CielOnTap]

Email scam targets Facebook users: Web security firm
Wed Mar 17, 11:45 PM

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Computer hackers are targeting Facebook users with an email scam that attempts to steal their passwords, Web security firm McAfee said.

McAfee said on Wednesday some users of the world's most popular social networking site were receiving emails that appeared to be from Facebook informing them their Facebook password had been reset and to click on an attachment to retrieve it.

The security firm said the attachment is actually a "password stealer" that is installed when a user clicks on it and can potentially access any username and password combination on that computer, not Facebook-related information.
Bad mail

So that is what those two pieces of spam were all about in my Spam folder. The mail had something in common with last week's spate of supposed UPS emails, also spam.

[CielOnTap]

The German Consumer Protection Minister is not amused with Facebook's data sharing policy with third parties, nor Facebook's absence of getting user permissions first.

"I was astonished to discover that, despite the concerns of users and severe criticism from consumer activists, Facebook would like to relax data protection regulations on the network even further," the minister, who is a member of the conservative Christian Social Union, wrote in her letter to Palo Alto, California-based Facebook CEO Zuckerberg.

In its recently updated privacy agreement, Facebook stated that it would begin providing general information about users to third sites -- "previously vetted operators of Web sites and applications." The company wrote: "In order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party Web sites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook)."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,687286,00.html

[alohasand]

It is hard to skip read the terms and conditions on websites, even for contests. There could be a piece that affects your income status if you win a prize, what information may be revealed about you after you sign up and how long that data is kept (might be in perpetuity aka forever), and if third-parties (ie. screened sponsors or companies or anyone that pays for your data) can access your information to sell you something.

Guess we don't wait for much anymore unless we are looking for information from people and offical turnaround time is a tad over tortoise speed.