It’s not about me but about you and those that you care about.
I won’t be staying for much longer on Facebook. I do not want friend’s to assume that I support Facebook’s complete lack of ethics for user data privacy.
Facebook data is easy to obtain and could be used to harm individuals and their friends especially in countries under harsh regimes. The value of Facebook has been in seeing friend’s pictorial depictions of their lives. Facebook wall feeds though have been so busy that they are impossible to follow. Facebook gives little and takes away much. Facebook want to own your data including the choices which you have made.
Facebook’s control settings have been frequently buggy, crash or impossible to change (especially privacy options). No one should give Facebook their email password. Once your email account is compromised it could be used for Nigerian fraud scams, banking fraud or spam phishing. Was your password sent using HTTPS? If it was not then a criminal could have it. Even if you sent it by HTTPS then an unethical technician could have sold or abused it. I would not trust Facebook to be ethical nor sufficiently careful given their poor track record.
Facebook has deliberately and suddenly made private user data public.
The Facebook system has been easy to hack. Facebook have, by design, revealed information about user’s geo-location without their awareness. If your bank or email company were this negligent then you would be forced to leave.
I will support safer alternatives though. You can find me in future on my own private network at DaveOshana.com
I resisted joining Facebook for many years. Just before I joined I started to write a blog article about raising concerns about the misuse of privacy and Facebook. In the past year Facebook has blundered deliberately and unconsciously with private user date. I will be posting links before I leave.
Soon after joining Facebook I felt I should leave but others had wanted to do the same had said they would stay because I had joined and was posting. I have enjoyed seeing what is happening with others through their pictures – but you don’t need Facebook to publish on the internet.
I cannot recommend Facebook to anyone.
I don’t need Facebook for my most important life mission: sharing Enlightened Consciousness.
Most people who are interested in my spiritual teaching work have joined DaveOshana.com before finding me on Facebook. Facebook users may have learned about my work via Facebook friends. My opinion is that my presence on Facebook does not bring more attention to my work but gives a false sense of endorsing Facebook. As a person interested in supporting and protecting others I must vote with my feet by leaving Facebook but not without making those reasons clear first.
I encourage you to find social networks that you and your friends can keep private.
It should be possible to set up private networks between friend’s computers using trackerless torrent technology and to have Internet Messaging that does not have to use a 3rd party servers like hotmail, yahoo, skype, etc.
Basically, any company that holds most of your data, could act unethically – and when they are caught red-handed doing it many times over several years then it is time to move on.
My next project will to unhook from Gmail (GoogleMail). I hope there is a similar email product out there.
Blessings,
Dave Oshana
In future find me on
http://daveoshana.com/
Something to Hide?
If someone has something to hide – and people certainly do for a variety of reasons – like client confidentiality then they cannot expect Facebook to respect the need for privacy.
However people tend to naively trust web providers. As I wrote it’s particular dangerous to have your network exposed when a political regime changes – as I know full well happened in Argentina when people burned their address books. The world has not changed. This is one stark example.
It’s also insecure when Facebook users give their email password to Facebook especially if they use internet banking. These are flaws with Facebook’s way of operating that could have been remedied.
Disturbing reading about Facebook privacy violations (just a few examples):
- http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9177836/Book_about_Facebook_s_beginnings_may_dim_spotlight_on_privacy
- http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-further-reduces-control-over-personal-information
- http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things-to-stop-doing-now-on-facebook
- http://daggle.com/facebook-personalized-web-1861
- http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/
- http://d8.allthingsd.com/20100602/mark-zuckerberg-session/
If you understand the risks and consequences and still choose to stay with Facebook then check out this Facebook privacy settings plugin for Firefox:
Nothing can protect your Facebook data except leaving Facebook! Find safer alternatives. Protect your friends.
http://kurtvonmoos.com/facebook_steals_contact_info/
Privacy Fail: How Facebook Steals Your Friends Phone Numbers
February 26, 2010 by kurt
In early January, Facebook updated their iPhone app to include a Contact Sync feature. In a nutshell, “Facebook Contact Sync” allows you to synchronise your friends’ latest Facebook profile pictures with the matching contact entry in your mobile phone’s address book. Due to “Terms of Service Issues” however, Facebook does not sync your friends email addresses or phone numbers (listed on their Facebook profile) TO your phone.
Ironically, what Facebook WILL DO, with neither your knowledge or consent, is import ALL the names and phone numbers FROM your phone’s address book and upload them to your Facebook Phonebook app (Click HERE to see your Facebook Phonebook) on Facebook.com, thus storing your private contact numbers on Facebook’s servers. Once your phone is synced , Facebook will attempt to match the newly uploaded phone numbers to users that have listed the same phone number on their Facebook profile, wether you are friends with them or not. If Facebook cannot make a match, it will create a new contact entry in your Facebook Phonebook using the contact details imported from your phone, and add a link to invite them to join Facebook. And guess what? There is no way to delete the names and numbers Facebook imports from your phone’s address book.
Boom. You just got jacked by Facebook.
So what is so worrisome about Facebook uploading your mobile phone’s address book to their servers? Several things:
1) Facebook doesn’t warn users that they are uploading their phone’s adress book to Facebook. In fact, because Facebook doesn’t sync contact numbers or email addresses TO your phone, most users wrongly assume that Facebook Contact Sync only syncs user pictures. In reality though, they are pumping your address book, without your consent.
2) Phone numbers are private and valuable. Most people who have entrusted you with their phone numbers assume you will keep them private and safe. If you were to ask your friends, family or co-workers if they are ok with you uploading their private phone numbers to be cross-referenced with other Facebook users, how many of them do you think would be ok with it?
3) Facebook doesn’t exactly have a perfect track record when it comes to protecting your privacy. And whilst it’s unlikely that your data will fall into the wrong hands or be used for evil, it’s still a possibility. If you can look past that and entrust Facebook with your own information, that’s fine. But can you really make that call (pun painfully intended) for every single person in your mobile phone’s address book? Would you like it if someone else was making that call about your own private information?
4) Facebook’s privacy policy isn’t a two way street. While they won’t let you sync phone numbers and email addresses from Facebook TO you mobile phone, they are quite happy to to sync ALL your phone numbers on your mobile phone TO Facebook and not let you delete it. How is that not a Terms of Service issue?
5) Whilst checking my Facebook Phonebook, I noticed that there were a number of people that I did not know and was not friends with. Facebook had matched them to phone numbers imported from my phone. Turns out some of these unknown users had fraudulently listed the phone numbers of hotels or businesses, that I had saved on my phone, as their own. Other users simply had phone numbers that matched some of my contacts due to both them and I not including an international dialling code before the phone number in question.
As a gmail alternative I’m trying out http://www.fastmail.fm.
Looks okay so far, but they only offer 25MB mail storage in their free package!
There seem to be surprisingly little real gmail alternatives, if any.
I’m still thinking of creating a mailing website myself. It should basically have the most important features of gmail and will be completely add free. An account would have to cost around 50 cents per month or so.
Is anybody interested in this project? Or does anyone know a really good gmail alternative?
I did it, account is deleted. Face book was nice to see pictures of my friends so far away but not worth the wasted time spent there.