Internet Privacy

Since next week's session is going to be about the internet and privacy, I thought I'd get the ball rolling with a few cases that I'd caught on to.

Note: all links within this post lead to external articles that go into more detail about the situations.

Facebook has changed the internet landscape enormously, in terms of what is considered acceptable and what not. In the earlier days of the internet, there was a lot of talk of never giving out your real name or address, and to be wary of strangers. (Well, that's what it seemed like when I was growing up!) Nowadays, people put up private photos on facebook, sometimes not aware of how extremely public these are. Many actors have found not just themselves, but their family and friends "facebook stalked."

Then there's the fact that most websites now allow you to comment using your facebook profile. While that certainly makes it easier -- no need to create a new username and password just to leave one comment -- it also means your real name gets spread further and further out on the internet. If you're all right with that, then it's no issue.

But of course, not everybody supports this trend. Google and Blizzard Entertainment both became mired in scandal when their own attempts at social networks violated privacy for users.

In the summer of last year, Blizzard Entertainment (creators of "World of Warcraft") announced that they would require real names to be used in their forums. The idea was that, with a real name attached, people would be more polite on the forums. They wanted to cut down on the fighting and namecalling often seen in gaming forums.

However, unlike facebook, where people post pictures and interact with acquaintances they know in real life, the Blizzard forums are mostly for interacting with strangers over the internet, and for a hobby that many people don't share with their real life acquaintances. As you can imagine, fans were not happy with the announced changes. Cons they cited included the ease of stalking, new harrassment based on somebody's perceived gender/ethnicity, and employers/co-workers stumbling across the site. In the end, Blizzard recanted, saying that they would forego the need for real names.

Google faced a similar situation with its Google Buzz. Buzz was offered at the beginning of 2010, all you had to do was hit "enable google buzz" as you were logging in to your gmail account. Easy, simple!

Well. There were no configuration options at start up, which meant that everything was immediately made visible to all of your contacts. Yes, every single last one of them. If you regularly e-mailed with your boss, your professor, your lawyer -- well, they would see what you'd posted, where you were located, and who you were friends with. Heck, it would even broadcast it to your abusive ex-spouse. Not exactly a good situation, and it could very seriously harm somebody. Google quickly apologized and set up new privacy features.

Now, there are some people who think there's no harm to broadcasting their real names across the internet. That's up to them. But personally, I feel that everybody should have a say in it. Facebook is probably here to stay for a while, but there's no need for every single website to adopt that model.

What do you guys think? Are you glad you can easily comment using facebook, or would you rather go back to the days of signing up for each site individually? How much are you willing to share with the online world?