What Does Privacy Mean to You?

With the meteoric rise of social networking sites, the concept of privacy has taken on a new meaning for current generations. Information that you may have once shared with only your spouse or closest friends, you’re now posting on Twitter.  If my grandfather knew the kind of detail that was being publicly posted online – he’d likely roll over in his grave. But it’s a new world we live in, and a new generation! Times have changed.

Of course, privacy settings are an option, but how many people are actually aware of their own personal settings? I often come across friends of friends on Facebook whose photo albums are set to public view. Do they know that’s the case? I’m guessing not. Hence the common stories of people getting fired or into serious trouble for their Facebook pics or status updates.

In an interesting blog on cnet, author Declan McCullagh contends that people aren’t really concerned with privacy anymore. His basis for this assumption is largely based on the fact that when Google was faced with outrage from activists over Google Buzz privacy settings, there wasn’t much of a public outcry. The same goes for when Facebook recently changed their privacy settings – he mentions that, “a protest group titled “Facebook! Fix the Privacy Settings” drew a mere 3,400 of more than 350 million users”- not much of a majority.

McCullagh shares a quote from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people–and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

But aren’t there limits? For instance, location based data. Foursquare, one of the hottest social applications/sites, allows you to check in at different locations, notifying your friends where you are. Yelp has also initiated a similar check-in feature. But I’ve heard arguments that these types of features are too much – who wants someone knowing where you are at all times? Able to come and find you, whether you want to be found or not? On that note, there’s the site PleaseRobMe.com, which recently garnered major media buzz. The site feeds primarily Foursquare posts that announce when users have left their homes – announcing to the world and robbers alike that their homes are unoccupied.

I think there’s a happy medium here – while it may not be necessary to update the entire world on  your whereabouts every 5 minutes, it’s certainly a fun and useful development to be able to share certain location updates with friends and family, in an effort to increase communication and interaction. Caution is important – every piece of information you display is optional, so I think we need to be aware at all times of what we’re choosing to share with the world. I would argue that many of these issues arise because people simply don’t pay attention to their privacy settings – granted, it’s not easy with the number of social profiles most of us are maintaining! But attention is everything – know your settings, backwards and forwards, on each site you’re a regular user of. It’s worth the time and effort.

We’d love to hear your comments on online privacy – what it means to you, and your opinion on current standards! Drop us a line, post a comment, discuss amongst yourselves!

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