Facebook’s Privacy Policy By Constance Brown, President, Canton Alliance Massillon User Group, Ohio March 2012 issue, The Memory Map http://www.camug.com Constanceb (at) camug.com Did you know that Facebook's privacy policy is more than 1300 words longer than the United States Constitution without the amendments? *That Facebook had 400 million registered users in May of 2010, half of whom login daily? That Facebook has ** 800 million users as of February 2012? That people spend more than 500 billion minutes there each month? How private are your communications on Facebook? It used to be that you set up your privacy policy when you joined Facebook and could revise it from time to time. Now Facebook "has revised its privacy policy to require users to opt out if they wish to keep information private, making most of that information public by default. Some personal data is now being shared with third-party Web sites." If you want to protect your privacy on Facebook, you have to engage a lot of buttons and select many controls. The new privacy policy itself is *45000 words long. To enjoy privacy you will need to press 50 buttons and make 170 selections. Not exactly easy and certainly time consuming. You will have to make sure to select to show information only "to me" or "to friends." You will not want to share with "friends of friends." "Under the Account Settings option, in the Facebook Ads tab, two options are automatically turned on to share some information with advertising networks and friends. Anyone who wants to keep this information private must uncheck the boxes in that tab. "Facebook has also added a feature, called community pages, which automatically links personal data, like hometown or university, to topic pages for that town or university. The only way to disappear from those topic pages is to delete personal data from  Facebook." **"Facebook does not sell user's information. They provide targeted advertisement. From Richard Allan, Facebook policy director. "Q. Do you ever think of selling any user information that's held in facebook? [sic] "A. No… Facebook has a business model. We looked at it and there are three ways you can run a service like ours. "You could charge people subscriptions. And we decided early on, we didn't want to do that and we never will. That we're not going to charge people to subscribe to the service. "The second way would be to sell data. And we looked at that and said that's not a very good business model because nobody will trust you. "So the third way is to show people advertising. So they can use the service freely, but they get ads on the page. And that's what we do. Those ads are targeted according to your age, interest, where you live… but the advertiser doesn't get the data. They get to show the ad to you. "Richard Allan is a former Liberal Democrat MP, a UK political party with a position of cultural liberalism and civil liberty. Now he works for Facebook, which is at the centre of a contentious debate on what role sites of its ilk play in free expression and free speech. *May 2010 New York Times **Britcoinmedia   Is Google Compromising Our Privcy? By Sandy Berger, CompuKISS www.compukiss.com     sandy (at) compukiss.com Recently Google announced consolidating the privacy policies for all of its services. These include about 60 different services like the popular Google search engine, the Google-owned YouTube video website, Gmail, and the Android operating software for mobile phones. Because of the scope and popularity of these services, this move got the attention of everyone from state and federal representatives to advocacy and security groups. But more than anything else, it left consumers with a throbbing headache as they pondered how this would affect them and if they should be concerned enough to stop using Google services. Data-protection agencies and lawmakers around the globe requested Google delay this implementation so they could review the new procedure but Google did not comply. The new privacy policy went into effect March 1, 2012. Although Google states that this new privacy policy is aimed at making Google services easier to use, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that their primary aim is to target users with advertising that is relevant to their interests, making Google's ads more valuable. The aggregation of information from different areas enables Google to target the interests of their users more accurately. For instance, if you search for gardening information with the Google search engine, play videos of how to plant seeds on YouTube, and get brochures of the latest horticultural offerings in Gmail, Burpee and other seed and plant companies may be willing to pay Google more to blanket you with their ads. If you are interested in gardening you might actually be happy to see ads for gardening tools and seeds, but this is not really the point. The point is that we are putting private information about ourselves in the hands of others. The problem lies in two areas. First are the unintentional consequences. As we recently saw in the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation, even acts made with the best intention can backfire creating more harm than good. When you add that to the fact that technology is moving at the speed of light, we are becoming more and more data-dependent, and new ways to manipulate data are being invented every day, it gets a little scary. Second, and possibly even more disturbing, is that power and money can corrupt even the most honorable people and companies. History tells this story over and over again. Google's informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil." Yet it was recently found that Google was circumventing the users' privacy settings in the Safari web browser. Even though the Safari browser was set to refuse tracking cookies, Google was adding hidden code that allowed it to implement browser cookies from third-party ad sites that Google operates. When this was made public, Google stopped the practice. But, other devious practices could be revealed or be implemented in the future. Believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Although Google's current proposed aggregation of data may be somewhat benign, what it will empower them to do in the future is problematic. With the use of data from mobile devices Google will be able to track our physical locations and actions. With data from our consolidated online profile they may be able to foresee our every move. If you want a prediction of what this type of unseen tracking can do, check out the movie called "Antitrust." It was produced in the year 2000 when Microsoft was the big, bad, corporate entity. It shows what can happen when a company gets too much power, too much technology, and too much money. When you watch the movie, remember to add ten years of technology to the mix. In the year 2000 they didn't have the mobile technologies and data-tracking capabilities that we have now. If you watch this movie and really ponder how large and powerful Google has become, the throbbing in your head may become a much larger headache.     Tablet or Laptop, a Popular Question ... and More App Reviews By Gregory West, APCUG Advisor, Region 6 & International VP of Sarnia Computer Users' Group (scug.ca) Can be contacted at: gwest@apcug.org Unless you are a "hard core" computer gamer, you can now officially say goodbye to the laptop. The day of computer frustration is coming to an end. The answer to pulling your hair out as you are trying to figure out why the laptop is so hard to use is called: "touch pads". Recently, I was on a technology cruise out of Miami, where 400 plus geeks road the seas and clicked on computers in various seminars. Wait, that's not correct. It wasn't computers these everyday people were using. No, it was touch screen devices. Mostly iPads I must admit. This too is strange as the group was 99.9% Windows users. The average age in the 400 plus crowd was, shall I say, more than 50+. Most of them said they cannot believe the difference and ease when they switched from a laptop or desktop to a tablet. Most people on the tech cruise, who recently bought a tablet and still owned a laptop/desktop computer, said that they "hardly ever use their computer anymore." The hot topic on the ship was the app. People were constantly sharing newfound apps for their tablets. So what makes these tablets so popular? Price, ease of use, two click downloads for software, portability, and low price is enticing laptop/desktop are just a few of the factors enticing people to switch. Here are some tips when shopping for a tablet: Test drive several. Ask friends who own them what they suggest. Do online searches for reviews. Decide what exactly you are going to use it for then decide on the size. I wouldn't worry too much about the hard drive size as most of what we do on computer is heading to the cloud and soon you won't need software programs for your devices. Make sure the tablet of choice has a USB slot for thumb drives, cameras, and other such devices. ITworld.com suggests "Decide on the operating system. The three main choices these days are iOS, Android or Blackberry Tablet OS. Do a bit of research on all three and pick the one that will work the best for you." One final word...Most people will tell you once they bought tablets their other computers became lonely. Just ask anyone who owns a tablet and they'll tell you they "hardly use" their computers anymore because the tablet is "so much easier to use and less hassle". Forester.com researchers predict "Tablets will cannibalize netbooks and outsell them starting in 2012. In 2015, 23% of all PCs sold to consumers in the US will be tablets."  Happy hunting. App Reviews..."AppZilla 2" won the App or of the year award. I broke down and bought an app for my iPhone, AppZilla 2. Ninety-nine cents is a fair price to pay for an app that houses 120 apps with just one click. Apple reports this app "surpasses 2,000,000 downloads!" AppZilla 2 works on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Sorry droid users! With 120 apps in one app it will take some time to test drive them all. Some are kinda corny but still fun. As a Google user of Docs, mail and much more, I like the way this app has corralled all the Google products for ease of use. They call this the "utility" app and rightfully so as there are levels, app for flashlight mode on your phone, path finder so you never get lost, night vision, password keeper, parking meter reminder with alarm, police scanner for many cities, and many more I haven't tried but sure will. I give this app a 10+. Gregory can be reached at: gregory@alternatecloud.com Visit the free website for 50+ learning computers: http://alternatecloud.com Free Basic Computer Help Workshops first Monday of every month 9:30 to noon: Grace United Church - Sarnia, Ontario - 519-542-1203