Presented By Ebrahim Sharifi Facebook And Privacy Issues

Covered Topics Brief introduction to Facebook Some privacy terms Some privacy issues

About Facebook Facebook is a Social networking website launched on February 4,2004. Mark Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook", originally located at thefacebook.com while attending Harvard university.Membership was initially restricted to students of Harvard University. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.

َ About Facebook Cont. The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes soon joined Zuckerberg to help promote the website. Facebook launched a high school version on September 2, Facebook finally became open to everyone on September 11, 2006, with the only requirements having a valid address and a minimum age of 13.

Features Wall :The Wall is a space on each user's profile page that allows friends to post messages for the user to see while displaying the time and date the message was written. Photos : One of the most popular applications on Facebook is the Photos application, where users can upload albums of photos, tag friends, and comment on photos. Gifts :Friends could send "gifts" to each other by selecting one from Facebook's virtual gift shop and adding a message. Marketplace : Marketplace allows users to post free classified ads within the following categories: For Sale, Housing, Jobs, and Other.

Features Cont... Status : The "status" feature allows users to inform their friends and the Facebook community of their current whereabouts and actions. Events :Facebook events are a way for members to let friends know about upcoming events in their community and to organize social gatherings. Networks and groups :Facebook allows different networks and groups to which many users can join. It also allows privacy settings on basis of networks. Groups are used for discussions and events etc. Chat :On April 23,2008 Facebook released Facebook Chat to the entire Facebook userbase. Users are only able to chat with their Facebook friends and on a one-to-one basis.

Privacy Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differs between cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Types of privacy: 1-Physical 2-Informational 3-Organizational 4-Internet

Facebook's Privacy Policies The Information Facebook Collect: 1- personal information name, your address, your telephone number, your address, your gender, schools attended, send messages,friends list Technical information browser type, IP address, store and use session ID cookies Facebook stores and information of a person you want to invite, to send one-time invitation, to register a friend connection if your invitation is accepted, and to track the success of our referral program. Facebook allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.

Facebook's Privacy Policies Cont... Children Under Age 13: 1-Facebook does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. 2-All collected information of a under 13 child will be deleted as soon as possible when Facebook learn it. Use of Information Obtained by Facebook 1-Your profile information will be available to users of Facebook who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings. 2- Your name, network names, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network and those limited pieces of information may be made available to third party search engines.

Facebook's Privacy Policies Cont... Sharing Your Information with Third Parties 1-Facebook do not provide your contact information to third party marketers without your permission. 2-Facebook share your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where believe such sharing is 1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, 2) legally required or, 3) permitted by you. Third Party Advertising Advertisements that appear on Facebook are sometimes delivered directly to users by third party advertisers. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens and may also download cookies to your computer to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content. Facebook does not have access to or control of the cookies that may be placed by the third party advertisers.

Privacy Issues Lawsuit from ConnectU.com  Mark Zuckerberg, has been accused of illegally using both the concept and source code from competing site Connectu.com while working to complete the computer programming for their website. Upon joining the ConnectU team, Zuckerberg was given full access to the website source code. Allegedly, Zuckerberg intentionally hampered the development of ConnectU while using code originally intended for ConnectU in the development of Facebook.  Since its original filing in Massachusetts the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice due to technicality  ConnectU filed another lawsuit against Facebook on March 11, 2008,in United States federal judge continuing the case; a resolution is still pending as of May 2008.

Privacy Issues Cont… You can't delete anything  “When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.  Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook. “ Facebook will advertise at you  We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile.  Facebook may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third parties.

Privacy Issues Cont… Anyone can glance at your intimate confessions  we cannot and do not guarantee that user content you post on the site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the site.  photo album loophole was discovered by Vancouver computer technician Byron Ng which enabled people to access their friends private photo album and even more disturbing access photos of people who weren’t even their 'friends' or belong to their 'network'.  When made aware of the problem, Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said that the bug was fixed within an hour and noted, 'we take privacy very seriously‘!!!

Privacy Issues Cont… News Feed and Mini-Feed  On September 5, 2006, Facebook introduced two new features called "News Feed" and "Mini-Feed".  News Feed, appears on every Facebook member's home page, displaying recent Facebook activities of a member's friends.  The second feature, Mini-Feed, keeps a log of similar events on each member's profile page.  Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg has issued an open letter of apology, along with an update to these company's controversial feature, that will allow users greater controls on personal privacy issues.  Some Facebook members still feel that the ability to opt-out of the entire News Feed and Mini-Feed system is necessary.

Privacy Issues Cont… Facebook Beacon  Beacon which launched on November 6, 2007,is a part of Facebook's advertisements system that sends data from external websites to Facebook, ostensibly for the purpose of allowing targeted advertisements, and allowing users to share their activities with their friends.  Beacon was later changed to require that any actions transmitted to the website would have to be approved by the Facebook user before being published.  On November 29th, Stefan Berteau, a security researcher for Computer Associates, published a note on his tests of the Beacon system, and found that data was still being collected and sent to Facebook despite users' opt-outs and not being logged into Facebook at the time.  On December 5th, 2007, Facebook announced that it would allow people to opt-out of Beacon. Founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the controversy.

Privacy Issues Cont… Secret Crush  According to a report from security firm Fortinet A “widget" application used on the Facebook social network site promises to tell you who has a secret crush on you, but instead tries to trick you into downloading spyware.  Instead the application displays a small iFrame with a download link that will try to infect the user's computer with the Zango spyware software to serve up ads.  Facebook has banned the "Secret Crush" application due to reports of its affiliation with a notorious spyware manufacturer.

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