There is a fascinating debate underway over recent changes to how Facebook handles user information. This highly informative post on ReadWriteWeb summarizes the changes, which make many types of user content more publicly accessible, including to search engines, than before. Some of these changes can be reversed by the user, but others are permanent.
Apart from the practical consequences for some Facebook users, who never thought their content would be visible to their neighbors, employers, children, etc., the changes raise profound philosophical issues about the nature of privacy in today’s society. Every application that touches the social web confronts these issues. Zavee is no exception. As we developed our application we constantly asked ourselves whether we had struck the right balance between public and private. We are comfortable with the decisions we made, but it is always advisable to pay attention to a market leader like Facebook.
Facebook’s argument, as articulated by its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in this interview with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, is that social norms are changing and Facebook’s changes are merely reflecting those norms, not driving them. He and other Facebook executives point to phenomena from blogging to reality TV to support the proposition that we as a society have chosen to live our lives more publicly. It isn’t that privacy is, in Arrington’s words, “really, really, dead” as much as it has been redefined.
via facebook.com
Dissenters raise several objections to Facebook’s actions. Marshall Kirkpatrick is among those who claim that these changes are contrary to Facebook’s previous statements about user privacy and conveniently align with enhanced revenue opportunities. Nick O’Neill of AllFacebook and others argue that Facebook is actually imposing its view of privacy on its users by making it impossible for users to keep certain content out of public view. As O’Neill writes, “User privacy settings should theoretically reflect the ongoing societal shift without Facebook making any changes whatsoever. If users truly want to share more information with the world, they will.” Kirkpatrick also points to this paper (pdf) suggesting that the issue is not all or nothing: privacy is violated when content is published outside of its intended context, such as friends or family. However, the most profound argument from a philosophical standpoint is that privacy, in the conventional sense of being able to “define the boundary between our public self and our private self,” is a right that is an essential component of our conception of personal liberty. As Bruce Schneier put it:
Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. . . .
A future in which privacy would face constant assault was so alien to the framers of the Constitution that it never occurred to them to call out privacy as an explicit right. Privacy was inherent to the nobility of their being and their cause.
Zavee’s business model is premised on what Howard Lindzon calls “User Controlled Privacy.” Zavee‘s value as a social shopping platform derives from shoppers who voluntarily exchange information with other shoppers so that all shoppers benefit from the community’s collective information, insight and experience. However, Zavee shoppers have a great deal of flexibility and control over the personal information that appears on the Zavee network, and Zavee never discloses the details of any purchase to any other shopper. Shoppers are free to include as much or as little information as they wish in their reviews, but otherwise their purchases and rewards are completely private.
We think this is an appropriate place to draw the line between public and private. For a different perspective, check out Blippy, a platform on which every purchase with a registered card is published to the entire network. Blippy appears to have met with some success, but it is not a path Zavee intends to follow.
