Privacy And Privacy On Privacy

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Executive Summary
Facebook collects a lot of information, which the users share, and the way it has used and protected this information has come under scrutiny quite a few times in the past. The purpose of this report was to find the ways in which the information is shared on the website and the control the user has over how the information is shared. Most of the data in this report was collected from Facebook’s official data use policy.
Facebook is getting more open and social with every policy update and this poses problems for the privacy enthusiasts. The way Facebook collects and uses information can be categorised into two. One is information that the user can share under their control, and the other is information that is collected autonomously over which the user has little or no control.
The default settings in place for information that user has control over are generally set in such a way that everyone can access that information. However, it was also found that there are enough settings to help the user enhance their privacy.
In conclusion, Facebook has some issues regarding privacy but the average user can still have their privacy intact. However, Facebook may not be ideal for the privacy enthusiast, given the open nature, towards which Facebook is heading. Facebook could also better inform the users on their privacy and the settings they can use to achieve that.

Introduction
Facebook is currently the most popular means of social media with nearly a billion users per month (eBizMBA, 2014). Such heavy usage raises the possibility of users sharing massive amounts of data, intentionally or otherwise, via the internet. Facebook collects all this data and stores them. A critical examination of Facebook’s pr...

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...social. Similarly, if people follow the trend of high SNS usage, they will share more information regardless of the privacy policies employed by Facebook. Hence, it is the responsibility of both parties to take steps to enhance the whole social experience.
From Facebook’s perspective, it would be ideal for them to inform the user about their privacy clearly and the settings that are in place to improve the privacy. In addition, Facebook should take care while introducing new features or privacy policies, to inform the users about how exactly they affect the privacy of the user.
From the users’ perspective, as mentioned above, they should take care to control how they share their information. Different users have different mindsets regarding privacy, and the settings over which the users have control, they should use them to maintain a suitable level of privacy.

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