As a Facebook user, do I have control of the data Facebook keeps about me? Concretely: can I examine and modify that data using tools of my choosing which are built for my needs?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Does Facebook act as though I own my online life, or as though it does? Concretely: Can I control what data it shares with other users, with advertisers, and with business partners?
We Facebook users have been building a treasure lode of big data that government and corporate researchers have been mining to predict and influence what we buy and for whom we vote. We have been handing over to them vast quantities of information about ourselves and our friends, loved ones and acquaintances.
Facebook's privacy policies are confusing to many people, and the company has changed them frequently, almost always allowing more information to be exposed in more ways.
Facebook's data trove is enviable, and its moves into nearly every aspect of our lives - from payment to media, will create even more of it. The company also has created a huge base of developers for its platform, but the ecosystem is incomplete compared to vertically integrated OSes like iOS, Mac or Windows.
Facebook is by far the largest of these social networking sites, and starting with its ill-fated Beacon service, privacy concerns have more than once been raised about how the ubiquitous social networking site handles its user data.
There's a feature on Facebook where you can enable security that checks the device you're coming from. By default these features are likely off, but as a consumer, you can enable them.
You happily give Facebook terabytes of structured data about yourself, content with the implicit tradeoff that Facebook is going to give you a social service that makes your life better.
Whether it's Facebook or Google or the other companies, that basic principle that users should be able to see and control information about them that they themselves have revealed to the companies is not baked into how the companies work. But it's bigger than privacy. Privacy is about what you're willing to reveal about yourself.
As we all become increasingly reliant on social networking websites and new technologies to stay connected, it's important to remain cognizant of how private personal information and data is handled.
Anytime Facebook wants to change how it might use all that data about you, in any way, across any service it has within the Facebook ecosystem, all it has to do is change one privacy policy, tell you about it, and that's that.