The Use of the Terms of the Terms of Use?

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Giles, Martin. "Privacy 2.0." Econimist 28 Jan. 2010: n. pag.1-2 Web. 24 Apr 2010.

In a series that Martin Giles wrote on social networking, he focused one installment on the evolving role that privacy plays. In particular he examines a tension that is steadily rising between users and their social network providers due to privacy settings. Giles article addresses the long standing contention that social networking sites place their privacy policies on obscure pages or simply make the process of finding the privacy policies unintuitive. Part of the reason for this Giles explains is the idea of “privacy salience.” He explains that social networking sites are hesitant to alert users to the privacy policies as it has the potential to make users less likely to share their personal information, even if comprehensive privacy controls are available to the user. If more users have their profiles restricted that ultimately leads to less traffic on the website and less traffic on the website means companies won’t pay to advertise on the website, essentially drying up the social networking sites revenue stream. Giles explains that this measure on the part of the social networking sites is part of their business strategy and points to the example of the discrete changes in the “Terms of Use” policy in Facebook user accounts. When Facebook alters their “Terms of Use” a user may have to go and reset their privacy settings manually and if the user is unaware of this certain elements of their profile may receive a higher amount of traffic from other users who would have been restricted in the past. Giles also mentions that privacy advocacy groups see this “shuffling of the deck” as a means of competing with upstarts such as Twitter by Facebook artificially making its ad space more valuable. Another element of this issue that Giles raises is the scattering of personal information of a user’s profile. By spreading the user’s data such as their contacts, their profile, pictures, posts, and other content across multiple pages as a means of making it a monotonous process of transferring information if the user chooses to switch to another social networking site. In the world of social networks their success is measured in their ability to keep traffic up and to keep users coming back.

Giles article is an important part of the debate over whether users should share their private information with social networking sites as it communicates the debate from the perspective of the social networking sites themselves. He does not excuse the potentially ethical issues that social networking sites are accused of instead he gives rational reasons as to why social networking sites operate they way they do. Giles communicates the all too often neglected fact that social networking sites are businesses that offer the vast majority of its services for free. Essentially Giles explains social networking sites have to get their revenue from somewhere and advertising will continue to be their primary source of income as no successful alternatives have been established. Giles article illustrates the concessions that users choose to make for membership in a social networking site is the privacy of personal information to be used in aggregated form for advertising in lieu of annual subscriptions fees. While there are still those who perceive Facebook’s surreptitious data gathering as unethical, Giles provides a response from Facebook’s head of public policy, Elliot Schrage. When the criticism of Facebook’s data mining policies is discussed, Schrage argues that “behavioral advertising” happens on many websites where the user is never notified whereas Facebook alerts the user that this will when they open their account. While there are those who might not by swayed by Schrage’s defense in the article the fact that Giles included it in the piece with out debate or rebuttal is an important element. Giles allowed Facebook to speak for it’s self rather than depending solely on it’s critics and thereby better informing his and his readers opinion. Even though Giles makes it clear that he is not neutral in the debate, he maintains a sense of balance in his approach where he allows both sides of the issue to be heard. Giles is able to both play devils advocate and present his own opinion without diminishing it, which is what makes his article an important resource in the debate over personal privacy and social networking sites.