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Your Privacy is Under Attack !
Every time you use a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, your search data are recorded. Your search terms, the time of your visit, the links you choose, your IP address and your User ID cookies all get stored in a database.
The identity profiles that can be constructed from this cloud of information represent modern day gold for marketers. Government officials, hackers and even criminals also have a vested interest in getting their hands on your personal data and sooner or later they will.
What could happen ?
Consider the following story:
In August 2006, the online world was jarred by the AOL privacy scandal:
AOL released three months' worth of aggregated search data from 650,000 of its users, publishing all the details in an online database. This database is still searchable. It is an absolute eye-opener to see the potential for privacy nightmares.
Tracking within a site is typically done with the aim of producing usage statistics, while tracking across sites with so-called third party cookies, is typically done by advertising companies to produce anonymous user profiles. These profiles are then used to target advertising (deciding which advertising image to show) based on the user’s profile. But advertising companies are just one of many groups that may take an interest in user profiles.
Now consider this story: GOOGLE REPORTS FLU SEARCHES, LOCATIONS TO FEDS which appeared on the Drudge Report. Google responded, "By making our flu estimates available each day, Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza. If there’s a breakout of influenza in Birmingham, Alabama chances are Google would know before the CDC."
We might agree this useful for the CDC, however, it gets a little too Big Brother-ish for many people. It also raises the question of what other information is being shared with the government. More over, it illustrates how entering a few keywords into a search reveal your most intimate thoughts. The real question is what kind of identity profiles does the government have on you now and how might they be used against you in the future?
As you can see, privacy is an important issue. Not just with keyword search we make everyday on Google, but also when it comes to joining a political organization on a free site like Ning. These kinds of website are data mining bonanza for government spooks looking for domestic terrorists. This should be enough to give one pause before signing away their rights to privacy.
Does Who Owns a Social Network Concern You?
Most people sign up for social networks because someone whom we trust invites us or we learn about it through reading. However, most of us do not take the time to do any due diligence about the ownership of the social network. Conducting “due diligence” on the ownership still will not ensure that we make a wise decision regarding joining and investing time.
Who owns a social network should concern you. You should be fairly comfortable that if you were to invest time and energy inviting people to join, contributing content, and developing a following, that the social network would have a reasonable chance of surviving and gaining ground.
As consumers, we have little protection. We do not have any severance clause. We are “at will” social network participants. Most privately-owned social network platforms have no succession plan and no plan for an orderly migration or merger into another platform down the road, even if it is clear to the owner that he or she cannot keep it going indefinitely. We invest the time and energy in participating, and yet we have no stake in determining whether the platforms live, die, or merge. We help create the value, but have little say in the future of a network. Yet, we continue to join multiple networks at a rapid rate without regard for the future.
Conclution
Other web-based services may appear free but giving up your privacy is very high price to pay in exchange for a so-called "free" service. Would you install a "free" video camera in your home so that the unknown authorities can watch your every move? Of course not, yet this is exactly what you are doing when you build an organization on a platform like Ning.
- Learn more about our Ambassador Program
When your local organizaton grows to the point you need a message board, we can add that feature to you hosting package. Unlike many so-called "free" web-based services, we do not allow any third-parties to receive and record any information that could identify members of your message board. With SaveOurSheriff, privacy is our chief concern.
