Facebook’s Non-Compliance with Canadian Privacy Laws

The privacy of human being has drastically changed with the advent of internet. On a scale of 1 to 10, the privacy of an internet user is a -1 or may be less. Social Networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace etc are mainly responsible for this privacy leakage. This short paper is dedicated to review the change of privacy policy by Facebook on December 2009 and its impact on public privacy and security.

Information Commissioner’s Office (2012) Introduction to The Data Protection Act 1998. [Online] Available from: http://www.ico.org.uk/~/media/documents/library/Corporate/Research_and_reports/ico_presentation_EVOC_20120528.ashx [Accessed: 11th October 2013]

The most efficient way for consumers to get what they want is through the ‘market’, not the government, but businesses have more power than their customers. Some businesses can and will use abuse this power and cheat and steal from consumers to make money. Because of this, the government regulates the behaviour of businesses to have a market economy that functions properly. These laws mainly protect consumers against; misleading/deceptive representations, unconscionable conduct, unfair contracts, and unsafe goods and/or services. To protect consumers, different legal and non-legal approaches have been taken.

However, this new Facebook’s feature can be backfired because Facebook invades users’ privacy. Many users felt like their privacy was completely infiltrated, just about everything users updated or changed was instantly blasted out to hundreds of friends. News Feed has kept all the users’ information “loud”, and allowed people to see pictures and posts, which could give out information that users might not want their friends to know. Users claim that News Feed features leave the door open for people to 'creep'. “Facebook has always tried to push the envelope” (p.545) and “Everyone is freaking out” (p.544). Using people’s first reaction to the Facebook’s “News Feed” feature, Thompson later explains the privacy problem that this new feature may have caused. Thompson tries to inform the readers both side of the benefits and disadvantages using Facebook. The author creates a great connection with the readers by doing so, makes the readers feel that he’s on the same with them, that he understands the whole circumstances.

He then uses ethos by discussing his role as “an operator of a small government-transparency Web site,” who does good for his site’s visitors when there is enough money to do so. Harper is a founding member of the Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security and an expert in the legal complications surrounding new technologies. He offers us this role to persuade readers to perceive him as a trustworthy person. Harper begins his essay by stating that if you surf the Web, you are part of the information economy. His essay, which was published in the Wall Street Journal, argues that the business models and opportunities used to customize advertising justifies the use of data mining. Because of advertising and the use of cookies, which are files used to track users in order to customize their experiences, companies such as Google are able to spend millions of dollars on free

California's Right to Know Act has been a long-overdue bill in the State's legislature that seeks to force Internet companies like Facebook and Google to disclose the collected personal information and the use of that information (Cohen, 2013). The introduction

"We Need Privacy Laws for the Digital Era | The Nation." The Nation, 8 Jan. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2016.

The words, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” were said by Edward Snowden who is a computer professional in America. Similarly, the essays “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” “Web Users Get as Much as They Give,” and “Facebook Is Using You” from Nicholas Carr, Jim Harper, and Lori Andrews respectively points out that the internet privacy is good and bad. However, the articles by Carr and Andrews are based on the negative side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is not good. On the other hand, Harper’s article is based on the positive side of the internet privacy, which means that the internet privacy is good and scary, but people need to be careful of their own information and browsing histories, and websites. Jim Harper’s essay is more relevant and reasonable than the Nicholas Carr and Lori Andrews’s essays. However, Harper seems more persuasive to readers because he believes that the internet is good if people use it in a right way, whereas Carr and Andrews believe that the internet is not good at all.

Facebook is a well know social networking site that has taken all over the world with over 500 million people using the site. Social networking sites such as Facebook share information about the user over the Internet, where it can be freely accessed by anyone. This is where issues of privacy to the individual arise. As of July 2010 Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. As of December last year, Facebook called its 500 million users to review their privacy settings at the launch of its new user control tools which allow the user to control their information easily depending on

Information gathering, through networking, social media, and both on and offline storage have made it easier to collect information about an individual than ever before, with many concerns having arisen over the years about privacy and the ability to protect that privacy. As debates over personally identifiable information continue, one cornerstone remains a constant, ethics. Ethics are defined as “the standard by which human actions can be judged right and wrong (Online, 2012)”, but even that can be debated when discussed within the realm of information technology. Have you ever been to an internet shopping site and “trusted” the secure connection? Essentially, you are entrusting an inanimate system developed by an individual or group

The United States’ Supreme Court’s prohibition on warrantless digital searches has raised a heightened expectation of privacy on mobile devices recently and also raises the importance of the Fourth Amendment regarding illegal searches and seizures (Balitis, 2014; Feld & Ross, 2014). The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been forced to review their rules, as their fair information practices of notice, consent, access, security, etc. are not being followed by marketers (Milne, 2000). For example, in a survey of 365 organizations belonging to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), Milne and Boza found that only 38% of marketers notify a consumer about the use of personal information, and only 26% of marketers ask a consumer for permission to use this information (Milne, 2000). Often in today’s world, a person subscribes to email messages or texts unconsciously and unknowingly through social media, at events, in stores, or through sweepstakes. That being the case, when one is not aware of what he is signing up for or opting in to or not aware this his information is being used, commonly seen in regards to geo-fencing, privacy concerns automatically

The marketing industry is an elaborate network that links companies to their consumers, primarily through written communication. The main objective of marketing is to identify trends and patterns in consumer behavior, and utilize the data to influence consumers to purchase more goods. From a macroenviroment standpoint, the general conditions of a market are heavily dependent on global environmental factors. The most significant factor that influences the markets today is technological advancements. Since the release of Facebook, Linked-in, Twitter, and Myspace in the early 2000s, the number of people using social media has increased to over sixty-five percent. The ever-growing dependency on social media platforms, has given marketers the tremendous opportunity to further market potential consumers. Social media marketing is a specific form of marketing that focuses on producing ad content that social media users will post on their own networks. This particular marketing technique is effective because ads and content are created, based on what personal information users post on social media. Firms and organizations that advertise their brands on social media are more likely to increase their customer base and annual revenue. By doing so, companies are able to increase exposure of their brand and widen previous hidden, customer bases. As a marketer, the fine line between right and wrong is often blurred. The amount and

Employers and schools nowadays evaluate applicants from their social media accounts. For example, the applicant’s Facebook profile could be used to get information such as age, residence and even academic history. What worries Joanna Stern in the article, “Demanding Facebook Passwords May Break Law, Say Senators” is the fact that employers and schools require employees and students to give their Facebook passwords to access their profiles. This practice poses unanticipated legal liabilities. Thus, government officials have rose against the practice. Indeed, requiring a user to share Facebook account’s password for access to the user’s profile is morally wrong and does not meet its intended objective.

Privacy concerns on the web have become an undesirable consequence that people face with cyber technology. The ability of computers to gather and store unlimited amount of information from the internet raises privacy issues concerning an individual’s informational privacy. A person’s right to informational privacy is the ability to control the flow of their personal information, including the transfer and exchange of that information. An invasion of informational privacy denies people the right to control who accesses their personal information. Many internet users are unaware that they are more likely to compromise their privacy when using the internet services such as search engines and social networking sites. The internet provides access to an incredible amount of information from all over the world. Some internet users use the internet exclusively as a source of information while other internet users use the internet to create and disseminate information for others to use. However, the vast amount of information floating on the internet would not

One thing Microsoft, Google and Facebook have in common is that they collect about as much data from each of their visitors as each other, according to an internet marketing research company (Alexa 2012). Users are concerned about the privacy of their personal information, even after the Facebook security expanded its efforts to reduce the risks to the users’ privacy. Facebook Beacon was launched in Nov 2007, a service that was ultimately a failed attempt at advertising specific products to a user’s friends depending on what known purchases that friend had made. As of last month, Facebook has begun to more closely examine the usage of its user data. Facebook accepted that it had deceived users by failing to keep certain promises regarding privacy, and agreed to settle charges laid by the United States Federal Trade Commission.