An Orwellian Era?

[MonorailMan]

My FaceBook story
*cues music*

I decided to sign up for an account last week, and was taken aback by what happens on the site. Upon first signing in I realized that 2 people whom I knew had put forth requests to get me to add them as contacts, so I did. Upon doing that FB started "suggesting" people who those 2 people were friends with that I may also know....and there were several whom I did......and within a couple hours I started getting more requests. FB also asks where you went to school, and in giving them that information, they start suggesting fellow alumni I might know.....and there were several whom I did.

The problem is that after this started taking place I noticed that there were quite a few people whom I wanted nothing to do with, let alone have my personal information. One major example: About 10 years ago there was a guy who stalked me and I had to take some minor legal action against. Not only is he on FB, he has also taken it upon himself to add me as a contact.

If that weren't scary enough, after doing some research I found out a little more:

--Once you sign up for an account it is (almost) impossible to delete your account and/or personal information from their database. You can "deactivate" your account, but you cannot delete it. What this means is FB legally has the right to keep your information for themselves and it is still available to people/your contacts on FB as well. In short, after you "deactivate" your account it will still be possible for people to find the following: your full name, your e-mail address, your birthdate, and a general whereabouts as to where you live. This is all information you have to give to FB if you want an account and they consider it to be public domain.

--FaceBook claims that your information will not be sold to others and that your privacy is very important to them.......but I've found this to not be true for the following reasons:
1. Before signing up for an account I got, on average, anywhere from 25-35 spam e-mails every day. It's been this way for about 3 years now. (It's sad that I keep tabs on that, but it's true. ) Two days after signing up with FaceBook I had 206 spam e-mails in my spam in-box and have gotten around 200 every day since. True-I can't prove it's related, but if you ask me the coincidence is too big to ignore.
2. FB used to use an application known as "Beacon". What it did was it took information from an e-mail account that you have associated with a credit card. It then took that information and posted it as an "advert" to your FB contacts. In short, it showed the picture you had posted on your account to your friends and it would say something like "Joe Shmoe has bought the XT40 Treadmill from The Fitness Warehouse". This proved to be a problem for FaceBook because there was a man who had bought an engagement ring for his future wife and she wound up seeing the "ad" saying that he bought it, which naturally was followed by a lawsuit. The (at the time) 23 year-old CEO of FaceBook made a public apology for using Beacon. HOWEVER, FaceBook is apparently still using it........but with a different motive: Instead of posting an ad on FaceBook stating that Joe Shmoe bought XY or Z, the information is sent to research facilities where things like marketing firms and possibly even the government have access to your personal information. And guess what--FaceBook is getting paid for this. How else do you think they keep their 200+ employees without having ads on the site?


I've found while it is possible to delete your account and information, the process can take several weeks or even months. And in most cases reported, numerous e-mails had to be sent in order for FaceBook to take the complaints/requests seriously. Just because you use the available privacy settings doesn't mean your information will be hidden. Lots of people have complained publicly that most of the time the settings don't hide the information that is supposed to be hidden.

It's scary if you ask me. I wanted to post this to let you guys know to be careful. FaceBook isn't necessarily bad, but if your information fell into the wrong hands it could be a bad thing. I don't know about you, but I don't want certain people having the information that I "bought a ticket on Delta Airlines (flight AL97) to go to WDW for a week".

 

[mikelan6]

I agree that FB can be used to spy on people. That's one of the reasons that took me so long to join it. I really didn't want people to know what I'm doing at every moment. Unfortunately, some of my family members post their travel and family photos on FB and that was the only way I'd be able to see them. I try to enter as little information as possible. I find it incredible that some people write what they're doing at every moment of their life.

I think there was a way to put a privacy blocker on your account so that only a few people see your information. You might want to look into that.

 

[MonorailMan]

I agree that FB can be used to spy on people. That's one of the reasons that took me so long to join it. I really didn't want people to know what I'm doing at every moment. Unfortunately, some of my family members post their travel and family photos on FB and that was the only way I'd be able to see them. I try to enter as little information as possible. I find it incredible that some people write what they're doing at every moment of their life.

I think there was a way to put a privacy blocker on your account so that only a few people see your information. You might want to look into that.

I've found the privacy features on most sites (i.e. FaceBook, Myspace, Livejournal) to be somewhat useless. If someone wants to find someone's info they can either log in using someone else's screen name or simply create a new fake account with the purpose of getting someone's information. (I realize I'm not that important of a person, but these things have happened to me on more than one occasion. ) And on FB your basic info stays with the site as soon as you create the account, which is available to anyone who wants it. And since so many people have been complaining that several of the privacy features don't work, it seems a little sketchy to me.

Yeah, the fact that people post every single event in their life and time it happens is a bit scary. I "deactivated" my account after learning all of the stuff I mentioned, and I also sent one of those "Delete my account" e-mails to their privacy department. Hopefully it works.


I swear I'm usually not a conspiracy theorist. This topic just really bothered me, so I thought I'd post about it. I mean....who knows how much longer it'll be before we all have to have GPS systems implanted in our bodies?

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

A lot of my friends have FB accounts. My sister, who is 16, has one and she is addicted to it. She is on it every available minute of every day and she is constantly looking at everyone's "status" or whatever to see where they are and what they are doing. It's unhealthy at best.

I never got around to setting up an account, mainly because I don't want one. Then that virus that went through FB a month or so ago completely wrecked a few of my friends' computers. Even better reason NOT to have a FB account!

 

[DVCajun]

I completely understand your paranoia. (sorry) I'm a privacy freak. It goes against the grain to put myself "out there" in any way shape or form. Even on the DIS, where I've participated since *before* 1998, I do not share personal photos, etc. I do have a facebook account, but I'm very careful about what I put there, and I have all of my privacy settings on the lowest setting. Basically, no one can see anything about me unless they're my friend, and even then they can't see if I post on a friend's wall or if I comment on a friend's photo. I figure, if I want you to know something about me or my friends, I'll be sure to let you know, thanks. I'm cautious about who I accept as a friend, and I have rejected quite a few. I guess I'm a fringe facebook user. I don't update my "status" (consider that pretty high school, actually) and pretty much stay quiet. Thus far I've been able to control the amount of info that gets out. I've been a facebook user for about a year.

 

[wallyb]

Exactly why I'm not on it.

 

[ringaswan]

We thought that just because someone adds you as a contact, they cannot see anything on your profile unless you approve their request.

 

[MonorailMan]

We thought that just because someone adds you as a contact, they cannot see anything on your profile unless you approve their request.

This might be true (I think they recently changed/updated that), but as of August or September last year this wasn't the case. As of right now things like pictures and blog entries can be "hidden", but the basic information like your full name, birthdate, location and the last time you logged on is still considered fair game for anyone. There have been lots of complaints about how when you choose the "hide my birthday/name/location" feature, most of the time it doesn't work. Identity thieves love that sort of information.

 

[zeitzeuge]

I've had an account for a while now. I started it as a way to promote my artist site as well as keep in touch with family. It seems that a large portion of my family are on it and they use it as as way to keep in touch, show pictures, send messages with one another.

It wasn't long before I had friends from highschool, college and grad school that I had totally lost track of. So far it's been a great experience.

I have my settings set to block any personal information that I don't want just anyone to see. If I accept a friend request, then they're allowed to see enough information about me to be able to write, email or even call me. Everyone else only gets to see a small picture of me and what city I'm living in. There are levels of security that you can put on your account.

It's been a great experience for me, but I understand that it's not that way for everyone. Some have, like you said, had people find them that they didn't ever want any contact with again. Chance you take I guess on any sort of site like facebook or myspace. I have female friends who've set up their account with first and middle name and did not include their last name so ex boyfriends or ex husbands couldn't find them.

 

[MonorailMan]

Update

The guy whom I had problems with several years ago has decided to call me this morning. I understand people feel at ease due to the privacy settings, but before you do you might wanna take this into consideration....

--I had several privacy settings turned on. I even found/used a "permanently delete my account" feature which FB has recently made available, although according to FB it'll take another 12 days for my account to disappear. Right now it's just "deactivated".
--I never put my phone number on FaceBook.
--My phone number is an unlisted number.

It honestly only takes a few minutes of research online in order to understand how to "bypass" several sites' privacy settings.....or how to be able to see pictures on certain sites without actually paying for a membership, etc. etc. etc. You get the idea. But trust me, I know quite a few people who do this stuff mostly to see guys' pictures, which makes me think about how many other people are out there who also know how to do this stuff.

I brought the whole FaceBook conversation up to my friend in NY a couple nights ago, and he made a good point: I said, "It seems as though it won't be much longer before we're all living in an Orwell novel." He responded with, "We already ARE living in an Orwell novel. You just have to choose which role your character plays in that novel."

 

[DVCajun]

Update

The guy whom I had problems with several years ago has decided to call me this morning. I understand people feel at ease due to the privacy settings, but before you do you might wanna take this into consideration....

--I had several privacy settings turned on. I even found/used a "permanently delete my account" feature which FB has recently made available, although according to FB it'll take another 12 days for my account to disappear. Right now it's just "deactivated".
--I never put my phone number on FaceBook.
--My phone number is an unlisted number.

It honestly only takes a few minutes of research online in order to understand how to "bypass" several sites' privacy settings.....or how to be able to see pictures on certain sites without actually paying for a membership, etc. etc. etc. You get the idea. But trust me, I know quite a few people who do this stuff mostly to see guys' pictures, which makes me think about how many other people are out there who also know how to do this stuff.

I brought the whole FaceBook conversation up to my friend in NY a couple nights ago, and he made a good point: I said, "It seems as though it won't be much longer before we're all living in an Orwell novel." He responded with, "We already ARE living in an Orwell novel. You just have to choose which role your character plays in that novel."

Yikes!

I honestly don't think this guy got your phone number through facebook. I didn't have to provide MY telephone number in order to get a FB account. Call me a skeptic, but I think this guy had to do some work beyond your facebook account to get this far. But -- YIKES!

I'm sorry you're being harrassed.

 

[MonorailMan]

Yikes!

I honestly don't think this guy got your phone number through facebook. I didn't have to provide MY telephone number in order to get a FB account. Call me a skeptic, but I think this guy had to do some work beyond your facebook account to get this far. But -- YIKES!

I'm sorry you're being harrassed.

Thank you. It hasn't gotten to the point of harrassment yet, but I wouldn't put it past him. When he originally started his "stalking phase" it took the police several days to take the situation seriously because it involved 2 gay men, which took them a while to understand and/or come to terms with.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Thank you. It hasn't gotten to the point of harrassment yet, but I wouldn't put it past him. When he originally started his "stalking phase" it took the police several days to take the situation seriously because it involved 2 gay men, which took them a while to understand and/or come to terms with.

I hope the guy doesn't escalate into stalking. Can you cancel your land line?

It is mind boggling how much of our personal info is out there. If you know how to look for it and are willing to spend some money there is pretty much no limit to what you can find out about a person. Scary.

 

[wallyb]

Thank you. It hasn't gotten to the point of harrassment yet, but I wouldn't put it past him. When he originally started his "stalking phase" it took the police several days to take the situation seriously because it involved 2 gay men, which took them a while to understand and/or come to terms with.

Dang!
I was thinking about stalking you but now I see It's already been done.
I hate being a unoriginal.

 

[mickeysaver]

Unfortunately, it's very easy to figure out real life details of most people, many of whom have not even gotten onto the internet. There is so much information out there, it will make your head spin. Sadly, part of the reason that I don't post much anymore is because of an incident on the CB that lead to some jerks threatening to use my personal life details against me at my place of employment.

I had no idea that this nickname had so many trails back to who I am. I have done what I can to protect myself since that time. I closed my MySpace page and lots of little details and photos have been erased from lots of websites/messageboards.

Please folks, take your personal information and the potential threat potential seriously. I never would have thought that anything like what happened to me could have happened, but it did.

 

[MonorailMan]

I hope the guy doesn't escalate into stalking. Can you cancel your land line?

It is mind boggling how much of our personal info is out there. If you know how to look for it and are willing to spend some money there is pretty much no limit to what you can find out about a person. Scary.

Nah, it's not worth cancelling it......yet. If he decides to continue calling more (which he thankfully hasn't) then I might consider it.

Dang!
I was thinking about stalking you but now I see It's already been done.
I hate being a unoriginal.

You mean.........you weren't the person who's been sending me chocolates and origami swans twice a week for the past 4 months??


Is it still considered stalking if you like what the person is doing?

Unfortunately, it's very easy to figure out real life details of most people, many of whom have not even gotten onto the internet. There is so much information out there, it will make your head spin. Sadly, part of the reason that I don't post much anymore is because of an incident on the CB that lead to some jerks threatening to use my personal life details against me at my place of employment.

I had no idea that this nickname had so many trails back to who I am. I have done what I can to protect myself since that time. I closed my MySpace page and lots of little details and photos have been erased from lots of websites/messageboards.

Please folks, take your personal information and the potential threat potential seriously. I never would have thought that anything like what happened to me could have happened, but it did.

Yikes! I'm sorry to hear that. I guess everyone needs to take into consideration that once you put any info on the internet it's pretty much permanently there in some way, shape or form.

 

[wallyb]

Is it still considered stalking if you like what the person is doing?

 

[Maestro M. Mouse]

Actually, when i applied to work at Radio Disney, my Facebook was inspected. Good thing I'm an angel!

 

[OrlandoMike]

Actually, when i applied to work at Radio Disney, my Facebook was inspected. Good thing I'm an angel!

I hear a lot of companies are looking at Facebook and MySpace for interviews. Pretty scarey!

 

[MonorailMan]

That is pretty scary.......but I suppose it's fair game considering the information is 100% public record.