With Google Buzz recently launching inside of your Gmail, many people immediately became concerned about their privacy. The primary reason being that there was a social component inside their email inbox, a place normally reserved for private discussion.
The other concern that arose was the way Google built your network. Most social networks are built, brick-by-brick, by the user. This is a huge pain to repeat every time you join something new. What Google did was use the wealth of information it already has on your to build your network for you and get you started. What they also did was make this new friend’s list visible to the public on your Google Profile page, just like any other social network.
Buzz also has location sharing available, which is a whole other can of worms when it comes to privacy concerns. Which brings us to the website PleaseRobMe.com. It’s a website that monitors location-based checkins and lets the world know when you are not home. Does that scare you?
Regardless of the various arguments, anecdotes, and opinions that can be expressed by these privacy “issues,” there is one thread that remains constant and true:
These so-called privacy concerns are just scare tactics to boost traffic
Think about this logically for a moment. Do your contacts on any social network immediately imply any connection between you and another individual besides the fact that you interact with them on that social network? If my Buzz contacts include Robert Scoble, Louis Gray, P. Diddy, and Barrack Obama, does that mean anything? The answer to both of these questions is Absolutely Not. In order to be afraid (and yes, it is only fear that motivates privacy concerns) of my contacts being made public, I have to make the assumption that someone besides me can make sense of that data. My contacts alone mean nothing to an outside observer.
The same goes for PleaseRobMe. I check in at the grocery store. Suddenly, the world knows I’m not at home. Oh no! Now I’m gonna get robbed because I’m not home. Nevermind the fact that I have a family, a security system, several dogs, a platoon of security ninjas, and nosy neighbors. Regardless of whether the world knows I’m home or not, a potential robber still has to go through the same procedure of casing the house and whatnot before they can actually rob me successfully. Again, in order to be worried about this data being public, I have to make assumptions.
I do not mean to imply that location sharing has never led to a robbery. I also don’t mean to imply that having a public contact list has ever resulted in some other type of misfortune, but these are edge cases. These situations are not the norm. Also, people were being robbed way before location sharing existed.
So, before you go getting excited about the latest privacy scare as it relates to technology, take a moment and think about it. Is it a legit privacy concern, or is it just something being drummed up by the media or the blogosphere to boost their traffic?
h/t Hutch Carpenter