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May 13, 2011 03:34 am PDT
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/TqTuS-CKmWA/steven-levy-on-faceb.html
Steven Levy on Facebook's ironic privacy charge against Google
Steven Levy (whose new book, In the Plex, looks like a very good account of Google), has on the spot analysis for Wired about the revelation that Facebook had hired a PR firm to run a sleazy whisper campaign about Google and privacy, a pot/kettle/black moment if ever there was one: Facebook was griping that Google is getting information about its users without permission. But some information that users share with Facebook is available publicly, even to people who aren't their friends in in their social networks - or even are members of Facebook. It's not because outsiders raided the service and exposed that information. It's because Facebook chose to expose it. Facebook used to have an implicit promise with its users. Basically the deal was what goes on Facebook stays on Facebook. But over the past couple of years Facebook has chosen to alter the deal. Certain profile information became available outside of Facebook, easily searchable via Google and other means. (Users can opt out of showing this but relatively few do.) Some of that profile information includes a few of the people on the user's friend list. By repeatedly pinging public profiles, it's possible for Google or anyone else to figure out pretty much all your friends. This information is a lot easier to unearth from inside Facebook, but actually logging into Facebook to purloin information would indeed be troublesome. For one thing, it would violate the terms of service agreement. Is Google doing this? One of the Burson operatives implied that it is. But Google says the company does not go inside Facebook to scrape information, and I find this credible. (If Facebook has logs to prove this serious charge, let's see them.) Facebook's Stealth Attack on Google Exposes Its Own Privacy Problem...
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/TqTuS-CKmWA/steven-levy-on-faceb.html
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