I go thru everyday crawling, nay scratching my way thru the internet to find info/objects/topics that are both noteworthy and  interesting enough for you, the wonderfully gifted reader, to not only enjoy but also keep you on a suspenseful edge on just what might be the next topic{note to editor: there I did the plug now give me back my booze privileges}. Needless to say not everything I find or even can find is the high-caliber that I would like it to be, there is a lot of junk floating out in digital space. Anyone who knows the basics of SEO will tell you that in order to keep my site “popular” I would need to write on all the topics that carry buzz in the current media. I don’t do that for the most part as I find it incredibly boring, but there is a deal of traffic I sacrifice because of it, and I gladly do so to keep the real interesting crap coming. One of the things I constantly turn away is social network (generally Facebook)privacy, or to be more forward the lack there of.

It always  seems to be popping up over and over again in the Tech buzz feeds and frankly I don’t much understand it. Now I’m not saying that a company should have access to all your information strictly because you’re a member, but there are certain points of the arguments that just baffle me. Let me use Facebook as an example as most of you will be able to relate to the claims. I have viewed so many separate articles on how “Facebook is selling your private info” or that “Facebook is turning over you home address for profits” that I get a headache just reading a sentence with the words”Facebook” and “privacy” too close in proximity. Arguments Fly around that its too difficult to use their privacy settings or that no matter what you do they will sell it anyway, it’s all quite scary taken out of perspective. I am a practitioner of web anonymity, so as you may deduce the initial rise of these allegations was a big concern to me, especially since I indeed had a personal Facebook account. After reading any one of these posts however I found the majority of the blame was to be found in the account holder and not in the host platform.

Facebook is a business, believe it or not they want to(and need to) make money. It’s not all that uncommon for a site to sell your interests or search queries to fund the site itself, in fact that’s one of the main reasons Google works so well. Now I’m not saying that they don’t need to be kept in check, you let to may things slide and you’re dealing with a digital overlord. The things that people find really appalling are when they try to sell your home address, phone number, job titles and activities….All the things that a person themselves willingly give up to the social network to grow thru such means. Now I myself have my profile private and all information only available to friends and I only chose friends I know personally. I do not however have my phone number or address on there anywhere nor any information that I wouldn’t want to give to someone who doesn’t absolutely need it. When is there ever a reason for you to place you address (aside from maybe a state) on a social site? why would you so callously give out your phone number? you don’t walk down the street and do these things do you? So why there? because their beautiful profile picture tells you they are interesting?

If someone wanted to have it they could message you and you could give it to them once you deemed them fit to do so. People forget what the internet is, which is a mass storage of information, once something is out there it’s no longer yours and you aren’t getting it back. Even pictures are lodged in cyber space. Don’t believe me? Try this: go post a pic on Facebook and click on it, copy the URL and paste it in notepad or something of the such then delete the picture off Facebook. clear your cache and go back the next day, paste the URL into the address bar…surprise! it’s still there. Go ahead wait a week, still there. Just because its gone from your profile doesn’t mean its gone from the internet, it can take months for that file to actually disappear. That’s just that one site, that one file, think of how many you actually have. On top of it all those little apps people sign on to typically have access to your information to sell it, it says it right in that mass of legal jargon you click okay to before you can use it. Sure you could adjust the privacy settings on the app after you download it, but do you think you were you fast enough? Do yourself the favor when it come to the internet treat it like a stranger, because that’s what it really is, a stranger trying to know everything about you.

Rule of thumb- don’t put anything out there that you wouldn’t tell me, a faceless figure you know only as CatastroFUCK…the sickest friggin writer on your favorite blog site ^_^.

05 Mar This entry was written by CatastroFUCK and published on March 5, 2011 at 5:02 PM. It’s filed under Digital Wonderland, Teach Me and tagged collective stupidity, facebook, i can see your ip, i have all your info, internet creepers, invasion of privacy, invisible yourself, its like it never ends!, lonely weekends. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.