Beware: the Internet could own your future

February 26, 2009 by Husna Najand 

Diminishing privacy in cyberspace prompts users to be careful

 A friend sent me a bumper sticker on Facebook that read, “Do you ever look at a picture of yourself and see a stranger in the background? It makes you wonder how many people have pictures of you.” While I laughed upon reading the silly message, I also found myself a little disturbed.  

Despite all of my privacy settings, there are probably several pictures of me floating around in cyberspace unbeknownst to me. In the age of Facebook where our private lives are flaunted in a public arena on a daily basis, our typical notion of privacy has become outdated.   Privacy no longer means having control over who has access to pictures and information.  

By the time anyone becomes aware of a tag on a particularly unsavory picture and asks his or her friend to take it down, dozens have probably viewed it already.  If Facebook had its way earlier this month, the notion of online privacy would have been further eroded to nonexistence.  

A little more than a week ago, the blog The Consumerist exposed Facebook’s change to its terms of service contract with its users. This essentially meant that anything anyone uploaded or published on Facebook would become permanent property of the company. Furthermore, it would perpetually have the right to sublicense the content. 

This would be applicable to any deleted accounts as well. As the blog put it, “want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content.”  

Imagine coming across a random Web site that features one of your photographs without your approval and you cannot do anything about it. The ensuing public outcry forced Facebook to rescind this new language and go back to the old terms, effectively ensuring that once content was deleted it would forever remain deleted.  

Is this the direction Internet privacy is heading these days? That despite numerous privacy settings, once a picture goes up the owner will literally have no control over how it is used?  I still recall the days when dozens of groups protested invasion of privacy by the News Feed.  Facebook won that battle and users just learned to adapt.  

As a user, I’m concerned. What if the site decides to change the language in its terms of service again? Will we one day have to learn to adapt to the fact that we must succumb to diminishing privacy rights if we want to keep our profiles?  

A line must be drawn between what is acceptable and what is not. We derive a sense of comfort knowing that we have a degree of control – thanks to numerous privacy settings.  But for companies such as Facebook to have complete ownership over all published content and the right to sublicense it crosses that boundary.  No one knows how these pictures would have been used and in what context as well as the repercussions they could have in our lives as a consequence.  

The candid camera shot is the ultimate example.  If you have never been personally confronted with this embarrassing problem, look no further than the latest public example – Michael Phelps. The photo of him smoking marijuana is the epitome of the candid camera shot gone wrong. He went from an exalted American hero to a petty criminal, thanks to one picture. 

While many people, such as myself do not care, his sponsors did and as a result his professional life took a hit and he could be facing an arrest. It is a scary realization that a single photo can be your undoing and it is worse to know that you have no control over how that photo might be used.  Sure we can ask our friends to remove a tag or take a picture down.  But with ever-changing privacy terms, that may no longer be sufficient in getting rid of a potentially damaging photo.  

Staying vigilant about the changing nature of such terms is one way of securing our privacy, as demonstrated by the random Facebook user who tipped off The Consumerist.  However, changing our mentality is even more important.  We have come to a point where Internet privacy rights are eroding while simultaneously, the line between our private lives and the public persona are blurring.   The image you project in a proper business suit to potential employers is one thing and your Facebook profile picture may reveal something else.  Facebook started out as a network for college students. Now our bosses, co-workers and parents are creating accounts.  

While it may not seem like a big deal now, as college students entering a tight job market, we should be cognizant of the potential drawbacks that lack of control over pictures, whether posed or candid, could present.  We live in an era of 300-plus supposed friends. At the same time, we hope that only our real friends will see the content we post.  We live in an era of candid camera shots that we have no idea were taken.  We live in an era where an Web site’s motivation to make more money trumps the privacy rights of its users.  

If you are not one of those people who read the fine print when agreeing to terms of service contracts, you should be aware that what you post publically could come back in the future to haunt you privately and professionally.