Page 91 - Privacy in a Cyber Age Policy and Practice

78 PRIVACY IN A CYBER AGE

who may have different privacy settings that allow for broader access to
data, such as photographs or group membership, that the individual never
chose to exhibit on his or her own profile.
Facebook provides customizable privacy tools and some privacy
protection, but it has faced consistent criticism that those protections are
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unreliable and difficult to manipulate. As Facebook has introduced third-
party applications such as games to its site, it has faced mounting difficulties
in holding to its end of the bargain.
In a July 2010 letter to Representative John Conyers of the U.S. House
Judiciary Committee, a Facebook official stated, “The question posed in
your letter asks whether Facebook shares users’ personal information with
third parties without the knowledge of users. The answer is simple and
straightforward: we do not. We have designed our system and policies so
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that user information is never shared without our users’ knowledge.” It was
a few months later, in October 2010, that the Wall Street Journal broke the
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story of extensive user privacy breaches by Facebook. It discovered that
popular Facebook applications were “providing access to people’s names
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and, in some cases, their friends’ names” to Internet tracking companies.
According to the Journal, the breach affected “tens of millions” of users—
including those who were vigilant in setting their privacy protections—and
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was in violation of Facebook’s stated policies. In the same month, the New
York Times reported on two studies that found that “in certain circumstances,
advertisers—or snoops posing as advertisers [on Facebook]—may be able
to learn sensitive profile information, like a person’s sexual orientation or
religion, even if the person is sharing that information only with a small
circle of friends.” 25
In addition, the nearly ubiquitous Facebook “Like” and Twitter “Tweet”
buttons on websites “notify Facebook and Twitter that a person visited
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those sites even when users don’t click on the buttons.” These widgets
have been added to millions of web pages and they appear on more than
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one-third of the world’s top 1,000 websites. The tracking, which is used
for targeted advertising, continues until the user specifically logs out of
their account, even if the user turns off their computer. 28
One may argue that the private sector merely uses this information for
commercial purposes, while the government may use it to jail people,
suppress free speech, and otherwise violate their rights. However, one must
note that the violation of privacy by private agents has some similar effects
to violations committed by government agents, effects that lead to discrimi-
nation and “chilling” of expression and dissent. Thus, when gay people who
seek to keep their sexual orientation private are “outed” by the media, or
banks call in loans of those they find out have cancer, or employers refuse
to hire people because they learn about their political or religious views,