Internet surfers and social network addicts: take a moment to thank Canada for fighting and winning a privacy battle for us all.
Ever took a closer look at that little box you tick before starting the “Which Famous Rock Star are You” or the “How Karmic are You” test on Facebook?
Don’t if you don’t want to feel exposed, naked and cheated on. Data exposed, naked and cheated on, that is.
Because what happens is that in exchange for vital information such as who your superhero twin is you allow “third parties”, typically the application’s (test’s) developer, to access your personal information, letting you wonder what they are going to do with it.
I’m thinking targeting the ads upon your profile, but maybe I’m just being malicious.
Being most of us users reckless and carefree about our info, Canada decided to do something about it. One year ago an Internet policy group at the University of Ottawa filed a complaint about Facebook’s privacy policies, which now resulted in Facebook having 12 months time to do something major about it.
The well-know social network will have to make significant changes to the software code it shares with third-party developers, in order to warn users about which bits of information are being disclosed and to whom exactly.
Dave Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook, sympathizes with the developers who are now facing software-changing issues.
“These changes mean that the privacy of 200 million Facebook users in Canada and around the world will be far better protected,” Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner, said in a statement.
Another important thing is that the mystery over deactivating and deleting one’s account will be unveiled. If you decide not to use the Facebook application anymore you will most likely bounce into the “deactivate account” option. This only blocks your account temporarily, leaving all your information in their Palo Alto servers. If you want to delete it, it gets more complicated. To find the right option I had to access the Help Center, type “delete” and scroll down the FAQ quite a bit. The link to delete was, in my opinion, kind of hidden. Maybe there’s another easier way but I guess I was not Internet-savvy enough to figure it out
Today personal information is like cash, only (or shall we say, plus?) without inflation: it is precious, it is hard to get, it is desirable. If you must give yours up and spill the beans about your age, lifestyle and interests, at least make it worth your while!
Unless you really need to know who your celebrity boyfriend is.
