Woman Sues Blockbuster for Facebook Privacy Violations 133
Chris Blanc writes "A Texas woman has sued Blockbuster over its activities relating to Facebook's Beacon tool. The movie rental service has been reporting user activity to Facebook since Beacon launched last November, which the plaintiff says is a violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act."
More and more problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from not wanting people such as potential employers to gain access to profiles that are by default made openly accessible, security vulnerabilities [publishing2.com] are particularly worrying, given the fact that social networking accounts often contain detailed personal information in context (i.e. not just a name, but a name connected to a university, email account, other people, images etc.) Add to that advertising schemes that intentionally deliver users' data to third-parties, and you have a dangerous mix, especially considering the average user's lack of awareness regarding safe-guarding personal data [bbc.co.uk].
Welcome to the digital age (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you think all this credit card tracking and online accounts and frequent-buyers club bullshit is about?
It is all for companies to be able to direct their advertising more effectively. That is their incentive in providing these tools.
If you don't like this sort of intrusion into your lives, then why not take control of your own governance [metagovernment.org] and change things?
FaceBook is evil. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More and more problems (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, Facebook has access to my information, but I don't see why third party developers have to have it. I also don't put much information on there. I just have to assume that any information in my profile is going to be available to anyone, even if I put up restrictions and limitations, so I'm careful what I put up there.
Re:FaceBook is evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Blockbuster makes you waive that (Score:3, Insightful)
Government can and does legislate power to the people... as well as taking it away.
And even if something is illegal across the board, you still have to go to court to argue it. I begin to wonder if American parents have to give their children a seperate allowance for laywers' fees.
Re:Yes but it's illegal. (Score:2, Insightful)
Which would mean you've signed away your right to sue under that law.
What this really shows is that even opt-in laws can be easily bypassed by burying the opt-in amongst other small legal language and not making it a separate issue.
Re:More and more problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. My face book is under my real name, with real information. I don't put anything on it that I wouldn't want my professors/bosses to see (because they're on my friends list!), which pretty much means anything I wouldn't want the entire world to see.
I have blogs and accounts on other sites that are less connected to my IRL identity. Sure, people who know me could probably figure out it was me, but my name is not on them, nor is any identify information like what college I went to or what year I graduated from high school. I can be a little more free, but I'm still reasonably careful because I know that if ANYONE can connect that to the real me, they can tell others.
Re:FaceBook is evil. (Score:3, Insightful)
are you serious?
When I want privacy I'm not talking about people not seeing the legs of the dinner table.
I'm talking about people not being able to track:
how often I go to the bathroom
where I live
What movies I watch
how much gas is left in the tank of my car
how much gas I use driving to work
how much gas I use during the week
And it's not because those things are important.
It's because of powerful mathematical functions and formulas that can derive, from that, exactly where I hang out with friends, and when, and for how long, and the most opportune moment to pop out of the bushes and ninja-kill me.
Seriously. you have no business trying to math-ninja me.
also, I am NOT paranoid, so stop calling me that.
Imagine the Repurcussions (Score:5, Insightful)
Example 1: Man buys book "How to Quit Your Job and get a Better Job for Dummies". His employer sees it on his profile and passes on the man for a job promotion, why promote someone who is looking to quit.
Example 1a: Same as above but man was buying the book for a friend unhappy with job. Man wanted his friend to find a job as enjoyable as his own.
Example 2: Man buys a book "Surviving AIDS" for a college project. His neighbors now think he has AIDS.
Example 2a: Man gets AIDS 10 years later. Denied for treatment by health insurance company as a pre-existing condition, based on his purchasing the book 10 years ago.
Re:FaceBook is evil. (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, I don't really buy the idea that lack of privacy is something that is good for society. Your relationship with your customers is not the same as the one with your boss or coworkers or parents or friends or spouse or kids. It's not so much that I want to keep things secret so much as I want them to be presented in context, which is why we tend to only share private aspects of our life when we think someone knows us well enough to understand them. People will always be unduly influenced by first impressions - it's fundamental psychology, not culture - and so I think this compartmentalization of our personal lives will always be valuable to some extent.
Even if this generation becomes more tolerant, the previous generation is still going around for quite some time, and will have disproportionate control of politics and business for that time. Most of the benefits that result from this newfound lack of privacy will take a full generation to come to fruition, whereas the damage it causes can be felt now.
Finally, even if society becomes less judgmental in personal life, there will always be profit/power motive in using your information against you. I don't trust the government or the insurance companies to look the other way when given info they can use against me, and if history is any indication, governments and corporations will aways be untrustworthy.
So, I really don't think this Victorian judgment bullshit is going away anytime soon, and I'll keep my Victorian privacy till then thank-you-very-much
Re:More and more problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
"Censorship is always more offensive than that which is censored. Always."
Re:More and more problems (Score:3, Insightful)
On another note, it would be no different then asking them what type of person they were. Sort of like with a personal reference even if they didn't list you as one. Obviously, if you have pictures to prove it, you are that type of person. So I guess maybe the question is the same, do you tell and keep your job, or lie to protect your friend and hope you don't lose it when they find out later?
Now if we could only work a car in here somewhere, we could really screw some analogies up.