Every once in a while, a website or service finds a new creepy way of gathering data online, and it seems earth-shattering until the next stalkerish way of data collection emerges. In an ideal world, none of this would come as a surprise, as everyone would actually read the terms and conditions when they agree to things — or at least those pesky updates sent out ahead of major changes to a site.
But of course, everyone just clicks accept or deletes the email and goes about socializing as normal. There’s often a huge uproar when Facebook changes its layout, but behind-the-scenes privacy tweaks get much less attention. It’s partly due to how they are presented, namely, in a less user-friendly way.
Customers deserve a clearer outline of exactly what they are agreeing to and the ability to pick and choose which parts of their lives to give up to Internet giants. While Facebook does allow users to choose what they share when they introduce new features, it often automatically adjusts the default settings. This, unfortunately, can lead to unintentional sharing of information.
Facebook recently fired an intern who created an app called Marauder’s Map, which tracked the locations of Facebook friends by putting each location where they had sent messages on a map.
This was the first time many people had heard about the location tracking that goes on within the messenger app. It’s not a feature that is completely integral to the app, and the default settings should not collect more information than necessary for the app to function.
Although I’m sure Facebook has the legal authority to make these changes, the convoluted language used to describe these changes means more and more data is gathered with every update, leaving many Facebook users none the wiser.
For example, with its recent policy changes, Spotify has gained access to a wide range of data that has little to nothing to do with its service. This ended up backfiring, as it should, with many boycotting the service until the company pledged to change its policies. When the Internet first became popular, users didn’t really think about privacy.
To some extent, this has lasted to the present, with many users never realizing the holes in their privacy settings, or even worse, not knowing that they exist.
By phrasing privacy policy changes in hard-to-read jargon, many are left agreeing to terms that they know little about.
These unintentional privacy slips that people may make without knowing how much data is actually kept on them can produce some creepy results and information falling into the wrong hands.
Spotify’s new running feature would obviously need to track GPS, but it won’t need access to your GPS while you are just listening to music. This, for example, is an important distinction that needs to be made in order to preserve privacy.
Industries of all sorts have been shown to be notoriously terrible at regulating themselves. Standards need to be written to protect users who may be tech-savvy but not privacy-savvy. Knowing how to use Facebook and knowing how to navigate privacy settings are not mutually exclusive. Legislative action needs to be taken so that users have more power over what they share.
Perhaps tech companies don’t deserve all of the blame. It’s important to know what information you put out there. Privacy violations are widespread and often hidden in the fine print of the terms and conditions. Users have to realize how their social media posts show a pattern that can be easily followed — what school they go to, what classes they take and, perhaps most eerie of all, what establishments they frequent.
Nicole Dan is a UF political science sophomore. Her column appears on Mondays.
