Facebook is watching

On Thursday last week, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the new profile, Timeline, and showed off new third-party applications that automatically share user actions.

During the presentation at the f8 developer conference, Zuckerberg emphasised the control users have over what information is included in the Timeline, while also punting “frictionless sharing” and “seamless” integration.

“You have complete control over your Timeline,” Zuckerberg said, adding that users can choose both what appears on their Timeline, as well as who can see it, such as everyone, or just friends.

Not dissimilar to the way in which users used to be able to add applications to their profile pages, the new social apps can also plug directly into the Timeline.

Once a social app is activated, it can automatically post updates about the user's activities - such as songs listened to, articles read or videos watched.

While the Facebook updates are currently only in limited developer release, the new profile and accompanying applications are expected to go live for all users by the end of the week.

The sheer amount of information that will now be available in the new Timeline has already ruffled some feathers, and raised concerns over privacy.

New media lawyer, Paul Jacobson, says the Timeline is a “pretty radical” update.

“Facebook has made a number of changes to its privacy settings, privacy practices and lists. In many ways it has backtracked significantly on its previous efforts to share too much user data without their informed consent,” says Jacobson.

“These changes are significant and will result in users sharing a lot more of their data and preferences. While there is a fair amount of inaccurate hype and criticism, users have to take responsibility for their privacy and sharing choices.”

Jacobson says the new Timeline exposes a previously forgotten history of posts and updates going back to a user's first Facebook post.

“Some people may find that worrying, but it really comes down to how conscious users have been of what they are sharing and how they have set their privacy settings,” says Jacobson, who believes most users will actually love the new update.

“It is more engaging, more meaningful and more applicable to day-to-day life. Users have been sharing personal information for years and this change exposes that information.”

Jacobson adds that one aspect of the changes that will scare people is the “frictionless” sharing that will take place when users visit Facebook-connected sites and perform actions that feed back into Facebook automatically.

“Instead of seeing permissions dialogues pop up each time you share something on Facebook, you will see one permissions dialogue when you first share something from a site and, from that point, your activities on that site could be shared automatically. That could be a little worrying for some,” says Jacobson.

Self-described hacker, Nik Cubrilovic, exposed an alleged security issue with the new frictionless sharing feature in a post on his Web site.

Cubrilovic noted that even when a user is logged out of Facebook, the social network still knows and can track every page a user visits.

Facebook has, however, responded to concerns, saying the tracking information from logged out cookies are used for safety and protection - including identifying spammers, detecting unauthorised access to accounts and disabling registration for under-age users.

Facebook engineer, Arturo Bejar, is quoted by Mashable, saying: “Please know that also when you're logged in (or out) we don't use our cookies to track you on social plugins to target ads or sell your information to third parties. I've heard from so many that what we do is to share or sell your data, and that is just not true.”

As Facebook tries to increase user engagement and sharing, some analysts have been speculating as to whether Facebook will soon have more user information than Google.

Senior security analyst at Sense Post Junaid Loonat says the popularity of existing Google products, such as Gmail and AdSense, still leave Google with more personal information than what can be easily acquired by Facebook.

“The fundamental difference between Google and Facebook is the manner in which the collected information is shared,” says Loonat.

“With e-mail accounts often containing sensitive personal information, the use of data collected through Gmail is never released publicly but is thought to only be used for advert selection.

“For the data that is released publicly, Google often releases a smaller subset of what it is capable of capturing. Furthermore, the released information often does not link itself to any single entity or user,” says Loonat.

In contrast, Loonat says Facebook focuses on publishing people's lives to their friends and associates.

“If you do not specifically lock down your Facebook account, these lives are published to all and sundry, making it more of a risk. For this reason, Facebook would often appear to pose more of a risk to an individual's personal information than Google.”

Loonat adds that since frictionless sharing applications are only activated once a user has installed them, users should understand the side effects of any application before authorising it.

“A user who has understood and accepted the functionality of an application should thus have no reason to be concerned.

“From past events though, it is clear that most changes to the Facebook platform have often attempted to shift an increasing amount of (personal) user information into the public realm,” says Loonat.

“Regardless, it is still possible for users to control the extent to which their lives are recorded online.”

While some have speculated that Facebook is crossing the line in terms of what people are willing to share, Loonat says such advancements in the social media industry should be expected.

“In this age, the amount of information an individual is exposed to on a daily basis is increasing exponentially. This leads each person to prioritise and categorise the information they receive, in order to filter the 'noise' from the data that may be beneficial to them,” says Loonat.

“It is human nature to share what has been found with contacts (friends, colleagues or family) so that they may benefit from it as well. As the amount of useful data continues to grow, users will search for simpler methods of distributing their findings with their contacts.”

Both Jacobson and Loonat say the onus is on the user at the end of the day.

“More than ever before, users must take responsibility for their privacy settings and the content they are sharing,” says Jacobson.

“Users should regard all information provided to social media Web sites as information that may (eventually) be exposed to the public,” concludes Loonat.