[May 24, 2010] Facebook rips veil on Web privacy Tweet May 24, 2010 (The News and Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- With a few mouse clicks, you can learn that Sara in Durham just gave money to charity, find out the schedule for Chris' surgery in Chapel Hill and discover that Mikki from Raleigh likes Johnny Cash and Disney movies. There's no detective work here. It's all on Facebook.com, available to anybody with a line into cyberspace. But even as the hugely popular networking site takes an international beating over its scaled-back privacy shields, it's hard to find many who say they're disturbed enough to quit posting their personal blurbs. With their laptops wide open on a downtown Raleigh sidewalk, Tim and Dani Devinney scoffed at the idea of Facebook privacy. Their real estate business is so wrapped up in social media -- Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter -- that they don't need to advertise. "Anything we put on there, we want people to see," said Tim Devinney, sporting a floral-patterned shirt. "She's wearing purple shoes. Look at my shirt. We drive a yellow Smart Car. We're not wallflowers." Since starting in 2004, Facebook has gradually morphed from a glorified chat room, all of it private and exclusive, to a global billboard users can't always control. Personal information once private by default now must be marked as private through a process many users find confusing. Some of it, including your name and profile picture, cannot be made private. Especially grating to privacy advocates is Facebook's habit of sharing its users' personal data with other websites. "The fact that third-party websites have access to my information is ridiculous," said Jeff Draper, using his laptop at a Raleigh Starbucks. "It's annoying. It's ridiculous. It's unnecessary." Many privacy groups have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, citing consumer protection laws, and several U.S. senators are pressing Facebook for new privacy guidelines. Get my life off the Net The flap about privacy has a movement encouraging users to quit on May 31, a call that drew more than 12,000 pledges by the end of the week. New scrutiny has also spawned a host of new websites aimed at demonstrating how widely available sensitive posts can be. One of them, www.your openbook.org , features a search engine that lets anyone type in a keyword or phrase -- "prostate exam," for example, or "lost my job" -- and pull up every Facebook status update that contains the phrase. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg encourages users to make more of their information public, using the site as a personal Internet stamp. "We recommend everyone be able to see information that will make it easier for friends to find, identify and learn about you," the site explains. The site counts on younger users who are less concerned with anonymity, or tech addicts like the Devinneys who use the Internet specifically to meet people. "I'm not a private person," said Dani Devinney. "I've never had a bad privacy experience in the past, but maybe I'd change my mind if I did." The Better Business Bureau of Eastern North Carolina posted a notice on its Facebook page last week asking users for opinions, but its role has mainly been to educate, spokeswoman Courtney Smith said. Many users are too new to the Internet to understand that the things they type into it don't always go away. "We would just suggest people know what they're signing up for and read the fine print," Smith said. "That's the frustrating thing with Facebook. People don't know what is available to the public." If you ask around, you'll find plenty of people who uploaded a picture of their hanky-panky, only to get spanked when it fell under the wrong eyes. But most often, they speak of lessons learned rather than Orwellian prying eyes. If you can't tell your boss, don't tell Facebook. [email protected] or 919-829-4818 To see more of The News & Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsobserver.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]