22 March 2010

I Am Not Paranoid - They Are Watching Me!


It seems that Social Media has been the theme of late in my posts - its probably timely and definitely worth spending time considering.

I have lots of issues about Social Media and still remain unconvinced that my life is better as a result.

That said I am a blogger so I must be contributing to it. Which leads me to a good story that has come out of the EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation. Under the FOI - US Freedom of Information Act they managed to discover that the Feds have been using Social Media to spy on the populace. So here is the link to the document and it includes a nice long presentation by the Feds on how to use Facebook etc to discover activity good and bad.

The attitude I have to this - is if you put something into the public domain then you should accept the consequences. Not quite sure what the Latin equivalent of that is akin to Caveat Emptor

Since both Facebook and Google's Buzz have created far more lax rules about your personal data - each of us has to be vigilant as to what is going where. It seems that once your data is available in public it is no longer protected even if you think it was. Remember that almost all sites carry disclaimers allowing them to change their policies at any time. So if the site carries a disclaimer that says "We will never sell your information" don't take that to mean they wont get some pecuniary gain from using it or passing it on overtly or covertly or even inadvertently to others. Oh yes and do remember they don't have to tell you if they change their policy. And finally yes it is your obligation and responsibility to know if they do and when they do as they have no liability whatsoever for messing and abusing your personal data.

So by now you should be completely paranoid like I am.

Its enough to make me want to return to the quill....

Cheers

No comments: