Facebook took some heat over the weekend when news circulated of a Cornell University study that changed the order of users’ news feed to see if the changes affected their mood. (Turns out it does.)
Facebook, for the most part was unapologetic, standing behind the rationale that the research was legal per their data use policy.
Nevertheless, it raises less of a question about its legality, but more a question of its ethics. As Facebook users, do we want to be manipulated in this way? Ultimately, if, as a user, you choose to give your time and information to a service, is it reasonable to assume that service will act in your best interest?
Cynics might say no. Some might say that the exciting rush of discovery clouded their judgement. In either case, we, as users, have a responsibility to choose online service providers that respect our data; Failing that, we should trust service providers (like Sync) that are technically prevented from accessing the data.
This isn’t the first time Facebook has mined its users for information about their habits. Last month, Facebook updated its advertising policy, no longer promising to “not track users across the web.” By now, Facebook is likely tracking all its users on websites and apps outside Facebook. As Facebook users, do we want to be manipulated in this way? Do we want Facebook to snoop through our data?
We might say “no, of course not,” but at the same time, two-thirds of Americans are not doing anything to protect their privacy online. The intrusive implications of Facebook’s behavior seem to be lost on many. It’s services like Sync that can protect even these users from unwanted snooping — if only because snooping is a technical impossibility.
Sync, of course, only stores encrypted data on its servers — information that’s been carefully and strongly encoded before it even reaches our doorstep. We physically don’t have the computing power to decrypt and look at your data.
You can opt out of Facebook’s tracking, but you must do it for each of your browsers separately. Also (naturally) if you clear out your browser cookies, you opt back in, and must repeat the process. Additionally, there are easy things you can do to adjust your privacy settings within Facebook, too.
Our advice? Any time you post information online, consider what could happen if that information fell into the wrong hands. It might feel a little like paranoia at times, but research like Facebook’s will continue, relying more and more heavily on their legal fine print. Use Sync to encrypt your data before you send it out, to make sure it can’t be mined for advertising — or any other reason.
