…and rightly so. It’s something which has been raised again and again since the dawn of the internet. One of the earliest great privacy and security challenge that e-commerce faced was getting the average internet user to trust websites enough to share their credit card details. Indeed most of the adult population can still probably remember this initial fear and be able to recall the sweaty palms when making their first on-line purchase crossing their fingers that they don’t fall victim to fraud.
Rewind the clock to today and people abandoned bountiful shopping carts if your site won’t make it easy to share your credit card details.
Now the big privacy issue is what sites do with the data we give them. Facebook in particular is hitting the headlines about their recent revisions to policy. Indeed social media is an area which faces the next biggest challenges. We have been happily drinking from their social cups connecting with others and in return we have been crossing the site owners palms with an unprecedented amount of personal information. Data is a key asset for most internet businesses and is at the heart of everything we do on the web however websites unfortunately can’t pay the bills with data alone. In order to survive they have to become data alchemists turning data into gold. This is where it all gets very tricky, as the data that Facebook is playing with is highly personal and emotive. They have to walk a very fine line of opening up this data to make some money and respect peoples privacy.
So initial solution was to give users lots of control. Let them tailor every aspect of Facebook so that they can control who and what they share. Makes sense. Only issue is to give total control is to make things complex for the average user. Lots of different settings amounting to a privacy policy which is longer than the US constitution.
So within Facebook you have have a wealth of settings you can adjust to decide what and to whom is shared. Trouble is this is definitely in “advanced” settings land. A place where only the super sharp fully understand what they mean and the implications of turning different knobs. For example how many times have you click on advanced settings when installing software? How many times have you tweaked your own cars engine to get a more customised drive? Chances are rarely to never as the defaults are generally good enough to get the job done.
This is where Facebook has slipped up, their defaults are share everything to everyone. A default that will help Facebook alchemists get the job done but leave the average user uncomfortable about this level of openness.
I am sure this will change as Facebook do have a track record of changing unpopular policy changes (and have already started to make noises they will) however I doubt it will be an ideal solution which will nip this privacy problem in the bud. Unfortunately this is an issue which will keep rearing its ugly head again and again. But we will get there as long as we everyone keeps talking about it and having an open debate. The benefits are just too great.
