Facebook security: the Secret of Facebook

Facebook security – the secret of Facebook

Facebook has now become a global social networking website, with over 845 million users all over the world. I barely know a person who doesn’t use facebook, for this became a website inevitable to use as long as you want yourself to be connected to the global community. Most people use facebook unconsciously, for the purpose of communicating with their friends, getting to know them better, or even making new friends online just like in the Catfish. You are probably one of these facebook users who made it a habit of visiting facebook everyday. That is exactly why you should read this, to be aware of what computer experts are doing with YOUR personal information.

You may have already encountered this issue before you read this, but probably not as severe as this. An Australian computer expert has raised first privacy concerns of the facebook users. He discovered a website that is able to track exactly where you go on the web even if you're not logged in to your Facebook accounts. He claims that Facebook is following users beyond the social networking site. His blog says Facebook does not delete tracking technology known as 'cookies' even once you've logged out. This is not his opinion only; many other experts say the exact same thing. Stephen Collins from the Electronic Frontiers Australia says, “It's actually still tracking where you're going and there's the potential for that information to be put on the facebook without your explicit permission.” Why would they do this? Obviously, personal information can be extremely useful for marketing or advertising, increasing the profits of businesses in great amount. On-line security experts also say that information could be sold to advertisers. They say that online tracking technology has been benefiting for years. Actually, according to Nick Ellsmore, an Information Security Expert, says, “For many internet businesses, there's a saying that goes 'If you're not paying for the product, you're not the customer. You are the product being sold.'”

The security problem of Facebook is not a recent one; this has been a major problem since the Facebook CEOs first launched this internet site. In Social Network, the movie that deals with the behind story of first establishment of Facebook in Harvard by a genius, founders of Facebook faced plenty of accusations about the morality and legality of the world's most popular networking site. The founder was sued by his best friend to the Federal Court, in which the Judge declares, “You’re being accused of intentionally breaching security, violating copyrights, violating individual privacy…”

On the other hand, Facebook argues that they did not use the personal information of users for their own profits. Facebook admits that it does gather personal information, but says it is used only to enhance users' security, such as detecting unauthorized log-in of facebook accounts. And in any case, the information gathered is deleted after ninety days. Also, Facebook engineers put these defenses on-line; an engineer Gregg Stefancik says, “Generally, unlike other major Internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people. We don't have an ad network and we don't sell people's information.”

Now being aware of this critical issue, many people now claim that the government has to step in. However, IT experts say common sense is a better protection than legal intervention. One of them says, “It's happening, and we just need to be aware of it, we need to be sensible, and if you're really concerned about it, don’t do anything you don't want mom to know about.” I personally think the experts are right. The Facebook engineers are probably one of the greatest technology engineers in the whole world. To combat these people, it’s going to take great amount of money and time, and of course, will not be easy once the Facebook get to know that they started intervening.