Terms and Conditions apply

27 Apr 2009 1 Comment

by networkmarsh in Uncategorized Tags: bebo, deep packet inspection, facebook, facebook terms and conditions, online consumer profiling, online safety, privacy, social networking, terms and conditions, user information

Online social networking is one of the most efficient modes of communicating with distant friends, but this form of communication also comes with its own challenges. One of the biggest challenges that come with online social networking is the introduction of third parties to one’s conversation or exhibitions. Yes, social networking sites provide an opportunity for distant friends to link up and catch up on each other’s lives. But the big question is, who else is listening in on these stories, who else knows what colour you like or what type of car you have just bought.

Globally, a lot of people now rely on social networks as their means of communication, and by thus doing; they give away a lot of personal data to these networking site’s hosts. Most of the time people just want to get onto the site so fast, that they do not have time to check what the terms and conditions are, all they do is just click the accept button and continue with the registration. After all most of the terms and conditions pages on these sites are very long tedious to read.

Okay, now that one has given away their personal information to these networking sites, the question still remains as to where that information goes and who has access to it. Most social networking sites clearly elucidate in their privacy policy’s what exactly the owners of the site can and cannot use when it comes to user information. But the majority of these social networking sites rope in a lot of Application service providers who come on board to make the sites more interesting and appealing. These third party applications providers have their own privacy policies and terms for how they use the information you’ve chosen to share with them. Bebo, a popular networking site in Europe clearly highlights in their privacy policy that they have no jurisdiction over the use of their user’s personal information by third party application providers.

One has to bare in mind that the internet also acts a market place where information is the commodity on demand. Advertisers are the biggest buyers of information on the internet and they are willing to buy any information one can give them about a potential clients or customers.  Technologies such a “deep-packet inspection” have raised concerns over issues of privacy and consumer online profiling. Most social networks and websites allow advertisers use these technologies to collect information and monitor browsing patterns and online activities of social network users .

With online consumer profiling being such a profitable venture, Facebook, the biggest social networking site on the web at the moment, faced an uproar from its users over proposed changes in their terms and conditions and privacy policies. Facebook wanted to adopt terms and conditions that could allow the social networking site the ability to use content of users even after the information had been deleted from the users account. The question to ask is why would they be interested in that information and for what purpose do they need the information for.

But not all networking sites are trying to sell their users information, some social networking sites give users the chance to manage and protect their information on the site. But yet again some sites can allow you to protect your on information but they can inturn collect information about you from other users on the same service. Facebook, for instance allows other people to tag photographs of people thus reducing ones autonomy of controlling their personal information.

So where is the catch? Although, most of these social networking sites are free, subscribers are in fact are paying for the services provided by the networks with their personal data. Thus the question still remains who has my information and what are they doing with it.