{"id":6225,"date":"2011-11-30T09:30:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-30T15:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcitement.com\/?p=6225"},"modified":"2011-12-09T15:14:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T21:14:16","slug":"ftc-likes-facebook-screws-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcitement.com\/software\/ftc-likes-facebook-screws-you\/","title":{"rendered":"FTC Likes Facebook, Ignores You"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I’m an idiot. And I know I’m an idiot because I’m on Facebook, and I’m supremely confident that my data is safe. That confidence is purely based on having dodged every other major data bullet that’s come our way. But the fact I have to face is that Facebook makes money by having access to my data, and the more they loosen my hold on it, the more they profit.<\/p>\n

In surprisingly under-reported news, Facebook just got a joke of a settlement sentence\u00a0for violations of federal privacy rules. The Federal Trade Commission announced<\/a>\u00a0that they had settled charges<\/a> brought against Facebook for not holding to the privacy standards that had been promised to users.<\/p>\n

Facebook’s violations include instances such as making friend lists public be default, giving third party apps to much more data than needed (including things shared with only friends, if the friends granted access to third-party apps), and sharing personal information with advertisers. These are the kinds of violations that people such as myself have said would finally drive them away from Facebook, yet membership keeps growing. Let me put it this way — if I told you that in exchange for being in touch with a bunch of people you already know, probably more than anyone should be, I will log<\/a> what you do in your spare time, sell your info<\/a> to advertisers, give unscrupulous companies access to you and your children<\/a>, and place ads based on your activities<\/a>\u00a0around you so I can make money when you buy what you’ve been subconsciously seeing all day, you’d run.<\/p>\n

Facebook is still standing for two reasons. One, nothing else has come along that fully takes its place as a social hub. Two, the slow heating method. One way to cook lobster without them twitching much is to slowly turn up the heat so by the time the water is hot enough for them to fight, it’s too late. We, my Facebook friends, are a bunch of mostly cooked lobsters, and the scary part is that we know it and aren’t doing anything about it.<\/p>\n

So, what does Facebook have to do? If you’re drinking, please stop because I don’t want to be responsible for you choking to death:<\/p>\n