When I started using Facebook four years ago, I decided that I had no privacy. It was something I accepted to live without. The convenience of getting back in touch with people from the near and distant past was more than worth it to post some things about my private life to a large group of people.
I also accepted that my photos could be seen by everyone in the world with access to the right url (like this), even though the photos clearly were labelled as "Shared with: Friends". (Clearly "Friends" did not imply "only Friends" but "Friends and everyone else in the world".)
However, I wanted to know exactly what my information looked like to other people, so I spent quite some time creating one fake account which I befriended and another fake account which befriended my fake friend, so I could see exactly how much information was leaked out to friends and friends of friends.
I wanted to be in control.
The first time I got upset, was when I installed the iPhone app. A big clear message appeared on my wall telling everyone that I had started using Facebook's iPhone app. It was not a a secret that I had bought an iPhone, but I wanted to be the one to judge whether it should be announced to the world or not. Facebook had decided otherwise.
Further annoying things were all those messages from different apps that clearly were not intended for me - not by the originator at least, but by the spamming app creator. Farmville. Angry Birds, Spotify, Daily photos… Certainly sources of joy for many, but did Mary really want me to know that she was reading about dieting and low self-esteem on the Guardian's website?
I managed to block the applications, one by one. When I tried to access the article about dieting (just out of curiosity, of course), I was asked to let the Guardian access my personal data, and to let the Guardian spam my friends with that same information. It all reminded me of chain letters or virus.
Then came the location information. Facebook started telling everyone where I was with every post. I managed to block that functionality, and I deleted a dozen of old posts, where I discovered that Facebook had already decided that I wanted my friends know where I was without telling me.
There was an update to the iPad application, and the chat functionality was impossible to switch off, so everyone could see exactly when I used the app. Annoying, but ok, I could live with that.
Then, I suddenly noticed that my posts once more had started to publish my whereabouts. I was convinced I had disabled that functionality, but back it popped. At this instance, I realised that I had no control whatsoever over what Facebook wanted to do with my data. Giving up my privacy was one thing, but losing control over it and not knowing what was published to whom about me was not anything I could accept.
I'm childish in that way.
Today, I saw the permissions for the Facebook Android app. It is probably just a formal thing - especially if you trust Facebook, but it is still something to think about. The app is allowed "at any time to collect images the camera is seeing." Also "to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your tablet" and "to modify the contact (address) data stored on your tablet." And of course to "modify/delete sd card contents".
This is nothing particular to Facebook and Android, unfortunately. LinkedIn had a similar intrusive "feature" with their iOS app, which uploaded calendars to LinkedIn's servers. And the iOS app Plaxo started synchronising all my contacts with their contact list as soon as I started the application without asking for any permission at all.
It is impossible to avoid risks. All applications, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS X, MS Word, Yahoo, Gmail, Photoshop, BibleReader, all have access to some of my data, and I have very little control how it is used. Unless one wants to get completely disconnected, the best thing one can do is to hope for the best and stick to companies one has some sort of confidence in.
Right now, Facebook is not one of them.
Some more Facebook bashing, just because I'm in that kind of mood today:
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