In our hectic, public social lives, there’s always Facebook, a gated community where you can let it all hang out with your friends. What you say or show on Facebook is safe from those outside forces that might otherwise ruin the experience: your parents, your students, your ex, and yes, search engines.
But Facebook is rapidly becoming more public. It’s important that you understand how public your data on Facebook has become under new privacy settings. One of these days, your Facebook session will be interrupted with a request to update to the new privacy settings.
I recommend you don’t take the default, more public options. For now, keep your data more private. In the next few days, think about what Facebook says about who you are. Go through some photo albums and some old posts. Upon reflection, you may be fine with the new settings. But remember: at the end of the public road lies Google.
Your Facebook posts are ephemeral, like bubbles. You blow them, they float beautifully, then they pop and are gone. But as public data, they’re more like a tattoo. Do you want Google to permanantly attach them to your public persona?
The Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff famously said, “In Soviet
Russia, TV watches you.” Today, he might say, “on Internet, Google watches
you.”
Indeed, Google is like Santa Claus: it sees you when you’re
sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows if you’ve been bad or good, so
be good for goodness’ sake.
But you don’t have to be bad in order to want to protect
your privacy. Plenty of good people mistrust Google. An entire culture has grown up around being skeptical of Google’s
informal motto, “Don’t be evil.” To catch a glimpse of that culture, check out
the paranoia – and hilarious cartoons – at Google Watch.
This context is helpful in understanding Google’s latest
privacy product, Google Dashboard.
In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and
control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be
simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use
(when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your
personal settings.
The Dashboard covers more than 20 Google products, including
Reader, Gmail, web history, YouTube and Blogger. Over time, Google will add
other products, such as Analytics, that are not yet included.
But a close look shows no new features, no new control for
the end user. Dashboard just puts all of Google’s existing privacy settings in
one place. A convenience, yes, but not a breakthrough.
What could Google have done? Plenty, according to critics:
If Google really wanted to give users control over their
privacy it would give consumers the ability to be anonymous from the company
and its advertisers in crucial areas such as search data and online behavior,”
said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with Consumer Watchdog. “The Dashboard
gives the appearance of control without the actual ability to prevent Google
from tracking you and delivering you to its marketers.
“What the Dashboard does is list all the information linked
directly to your name, but what it doesn’t do is let you know and control the
data directly tied to your computer’s IP address, which is Google’s black box
and data mine,” said Simpson “Google isn’t truly protecting privacy until it
lets you control that information.”
… and though much of the concern about Google’s data storage
revolves around precisely how and what the company does to analyze and profit
from user information, the Dashboard offers little insight into those domains.
It does not specify which services keep user data, or for how
long. Neither does it alert users that, for instance, their Web search
histories and e-mails are constantly scanned for the purposes of selling
products to them and others.
While you’re waiting for a more open approach to privacy,
there are some easy things you can do:
Don’t rely exclusively on Google products. Today, you often
have a choice; you can use WordPress instead of Blogger, for example. A healthy
diet includes a variety of foods; use this pluralistic approach when choosing
internet services;
Log out of your Google account when you’re not using Google
services;
Reset your browser occasionally; this wipes cookies and
browsing history. Or use “private browsing” settings.
You can further manage your privacy, but it will require
some effort. Here are two articles that provide specific tips.