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The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

mattmckeon.com

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Re: The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

#21

Post by kmavm »

iamdave wrote: post #19

I've got a question. I really am starting to think Facebook went through my Gmail contacts without me even authorizing it to do so. In the past hour, it's suggested three people I 1) Don't have any friends in common with 2) Never searched for on Facebook 3) Never contacted other than through Gmail and 4) never even worked with One guy, I used to play Team Fortress Classic with, who only I've talked to through email s…

The contact importer works both ways; so if A has emailed B, and A imports his contacts, A might get recommended to B as a friend. This is the usual explanation for mystery PYMK suggestions.

That said, the algorithm for finding candidate pairs uses a lot of features, including past employers, schools in common, graph features other than just distance, etc. Occasionally it has a surprising success like this.

Re: The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

#24

Post by Raphael »

47 wrote: post #14

I have been trying to come up with a design for a Open Social Network. Something you can host yourself or use from a "trusted" third party with the ability to seamlessly connect with each other. The idea is: 1) You take your data where you want 2) You control you privacy 3) Seamless integration with different installation running all around the world. 4) Open Source (So it can be peer reviewed) 5) Tools for migrating…

1) JSON for everything. Want to leave? Download your profile in a text file.

2) Make it like email. Every item has a "to" list. Nothing outside the list can see.

3) pubsubhubbub or webhooks.

4) OK.

5,6) Difficult to impossible.

Re: The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

#27

Post by mkn »

hugh3 wrote: post #16

The good news is that the eviller Facebook gets, the more of a market it creates for the "kinda like facebook, but not evil" competitor to come along. I'm not sure how you could get traction, but aiming it directly at people who are disillusioned with facebook over privacy and stupid apps would be the way to go... position it as a "clean" and "sophisticated" alternative to facebook, and make it super-easy for people…

"I'm not sure how you could get traction..."

I think one way to get traction would be to expand a profile or messaging feature of an existing site that has a reputation for trustworthiness with user data, and then fork the feature after it reaches critical mass.

Re: The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

#28

Post by pasbesoin »

jarek wrote: post #11
fredmg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can deactivate your account when you sign off, then reactivate it whenever you want to do something with it. That way you are hopefully less vulnerable to their bugs and random privacy changes.

Pro tip: some settings reset to defaults when reactivating, so double check. A while back I found all of my notification settings reset to "email on everything" upon reactivating, and I think some privacy settings were different too.

This needs to be more widely publicized.
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