Google to launch "behavioral advertising" (read "spying")!

Google is currently testing the long denied technology for user preferences tracking. The system will track user behaviour across the immense Google partner network. Data on visited sites will be associated with your unique browser ID and stored in Google's database. Mined data are then going to be used for advertising purposes (so called behavioral advertising). According to Google, this is going to be beneficial for advertisers (providing them better targeting options) as well as for internet users (ads shown will be more relevant and thus add more value).

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!

This is a serious privacy disaster! It is equivalent to being followed whenever you go! Sure, more relevant ads are a nice thing, but for what price? How safely will be the data stored and who assures it's not abused? Google is playing with fire here, as it's good image might end up in Microsoft's levels in a few years... What made them change their attitude and start experimenting with a technology they have been refusing so far? Global economic downturn and decreased advertising revenues?

Sure, Google offers an opt-out. You can go to a specific site (note: you can also edit your ad preferences there) and download a plug-in to your browser that insures that you're not being spied on. What a convenient solution! Moreover, they made the announcement silently on their blog. How many people do you think will know that they are being followed and that they can opt-out?

In my opinion, if Google dares to do something like that, it should certainly be on an opt-in basis. I'm pretty sure that we are about to hear more about this story in the media soon. Read more here.

Is Google going to delete my blog?

Facebook to introduce new homepage design

Facebook is about to introduce new homepage design soon. This is a very welcomed step, since Facebook promises to offer new filtering and highlighting capabilities to combat the ever-growing amount of information. "About time!", I say. Have a look at the following screenshot that explains it all (more screenshots here):

Facebook vs. Twitter: Open war?

If you look "behind the scenes" a bit, Facebook is trying to deliver a more Twitter-like experience, changing the "Status" to more liberating "What's on your mind?". Maybe there is no need for two social networks when one could offer the functionality of both...?

At the same time, Facebook is going to recommend you information about certain friends that you communicate with the most. This means we are probably about to lose a bit of control of who gets what preference on our homepage.

Facebook -> Google -> Microsoft

These are certainly tiny details, but aren't they a bit controversial? If you look further into the future: When does the time come that a nice and friendly company becomes ugly and evil? Look at Microsoft or Google that is potentially on the way to the other extreme. Does this happen to all companies, because we like small and new and hate big and powerful?

The Facebook "plague"

When I joined Facebook in autumn 2006, it was just pioneering in the Czech Republic, but it was already obvious that it's spreading throughout the world like a "plague". I avoided it at first, because I'm not into everything that masses like and I also feared that my personal data could be abused. It was curiosity, friends from abroad and a spark of exclusivity that Facebook had at that time at least in my region that brought me there.

Come to the dark side

After I joined, I was really happy about all the fancy capabilities and I did my best to make my actual friends to sing up, so that I could start really using them. I became a Facebook advocate, fully aware of the "plague" I'm spreading, but it just seemed so beneficial for everyone. And so within a year, most of my friends did sing up, even the hardcore sceptics. They had no choice, when all the events and photos were on Facebook. They could choose - either to sign up or to be an outsider.

With my friends list reaching 100, it was becoming obvious that my "addiction" to reading newsfeeds about friends is not very sustainable. I had to start filtering and choosing to "see less information about these persons". I turned off the chat a short time after it was introduced. My growing friends list has another disadvantage - I'm loosing control of who can see what information about me.

I'm not adding anyone anymore and I almost stopped advocating Facebook - there are almost none of my actual friends left, who do not have accounts and there is no more need to advocate it, the movement is already there, the pressure on outsiders to join is already there, "the plague" is unavoidable. 250000 individuals sign up every day (link in Czech). I'm getting friends requests from people whom I actually don't want to have in my friends list, but I don't want to offend anyone, I want to "maintain good relationships" with them.

A service shaped for the served (or?)

The need of more control is growing and I know that I'm not the only one who has it. WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO BE A FRIEND when they are actually not friends, they are just acquintances that I want to keep in contact with. WHY ARE THERE NO FRIEND GROUPS/LEVELS?

Facebook is not a mere internet service anymore, it has become a norm, it is changing the society in a HUGE way, that's what we can all agree upon. "I know you from Facebook" is becoming a common phrase. The concrete effects on society are yet to be studied, uncertainty is present. Even the EU commission realized that there is something happenig and warns that Facebook can be dangerous (link in Czech), because young people are sharing huge amounts of personal information without seeing the risks. How many times have YOU revised the information you share on your profile and your privacy settings?

Although it might sound like it, I'm not against Facebook now nor did I ceased to use it. Actually I use it more than I would like to... it's now my homepage. The question is, is it only the society that has to change, or should Facebook do a better job in fitting the society?! 

If my post got you thinking and you want some more impulses for your ideas, see a very interesting related article "Alone among friends" from Sueddeutsche Zeitung analyzing Facebook psychologically and sociologically (in German).