Is Being On Facebook Like Opening Up Your Private Information For Public??!!

The advent of social networking sites has brought the issue of privacy to the forefront

. Time and time again questions are being raised about the dilution of privacy for the data that you share via social networking websites like Facebook. Recently, a report titled Consumers Reports reiterated the issue to be discussed afresh. The culpability has been switched to these sites due to their failure to take adequate security measure to safeguard the privacy of visitors.

Lets evaluate the ground situation and understand the claim put forward against sites like Facebook. Interestingly, majority of the social networking websites users are not aware of this fact that their private information is being exposed to all.

According to the figures provided in Consumers Report, around 13 million American Facebook users do not use Facebooks privacy control features and they are not even aware of it. On a particular day 4.8 million Americans posted about their plan to go out which could have alerted a burglar who can use such information for their advantage. Furthermore, around 4.7 million visitors may become target to insurers if they like a Facebook page about health conditions and treatments.

The surprising and alarming fact of this survey is that less than half of the entire Facebook users (37 percent) are using the privacy tools provided by the website to customize the privacy settings and choose the information that they want to hide or reveal.

According to Jeff Fox, Consumer Reports technology editor, Facebook really is changing the way the world socially communicates and has become a successful service by leveraging copious amounts of personal data that can be spread far wider than its users might realize. The pity of the entire episode is that, Facebook is collecting a great deal of information about users and the users are not at all aware of it. The users are totally unaware of the fact that their thoughts, experiences and posts reveal a lot of private information and that it is being accumulated at the site.

According to the report, users will be astonished to acknowledge that by merely clicking on a like button they are creating a lot of information and sharing their privacy irrespective of whether they have a log-in account on the site or not.

The protagonists of privacy and people behind the report did not miss suggesting the fact that Facebook should do more by fixing a security flaw that allows users to set up weak passwords including some six-letter dictionary words, birth dates etc. Facebook has been suggested to educate users and encourage them not to share status updates with the public.

Facebook is expected to make its much talked- about stock market debut in the latter half of this year. The presence of this company is expanding and it is now expected to honor the privacy of its around 901 million users. However, Facebook has taken steps to reduce the privacy risk of its users but still a lot is yet y to be done before it could be proclaimed as a safe social networking website.

by: Jennifer M Shields

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