Data Collection Methods – Who Looks At My Facebook Data?
Dallas, TX (PRWEB) July 22, 2013 -- idcloak Technologies’ latest publication in their Knowledge Centre examines how Facebook profiles are being used to victimize or discriminate against their owners. The article – Data Collection methods – Who Looks at my Facebook Data? – intends to raise awareness on the dangers of careless social networking and encourage users to better safeguard their personal data.
The article mentions several groups that Welles says are the main predators of personal data on Facebook: employers, insurers, admissions offices, government agencies, cyber thieves and cyber stalkers. In each case, examples are cited of how data taken from Facebook profiles has been used to the detriment of the profile owners.
Writer of the article, Robin Welles, wants Facebook users to better understand what the site has become in social terms, “There are two Facebooks. There is the Facebook that has been developed, refined and given to us as a service by Mr. Zuckerberg et al – the one on the surface; the one we are meant to see, and the one we want to see.”
“But then there is another Facebook: the Facebook we have taken into our society and implemented into our lives. It is a medium, and as so is defined much more by its users than by its creators. What social networking has become is still social, but only in the broadest sense of the word: at times social networking is a-social (e.g. professional), at times it’s anti-social or even sociopathic (see the section on Cyberbullying) and, sadly, it is also increasingly used to facilitate crime. This is no fault of the developers – it is just what happens when society inhabits a space over time.”
On how users might cope with what social networking has become, Welles places onus on the user, “We need to understand the threats and take responsibility ourselves of what data we publish and how we manage its visibility. That is why I wrote this article – to encourage people to start thinking in these terms.”
Dallas-based idcloak Technologies is a provider of online identity management services: a free Web Master proxy and a forthcoming VPN, which the firm claims will be regarded as the best VPN service on the market in terms of dependability, flexibility and performance.
The idcloak Knowledge Centre contains 500 free educational articles.
See http://www.idcloak.com for more.
Gill-Chris Welles, idcloak Technologies Inc., http://www.idcloak.com, 786-210-9280, [email protected]
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