Human Rights First Human Rights First

Facebook + Better Privacy Policies = Google+

7-11-2011

By Gabriel Nichols
for Business and Human Rights Initiative

This month Google launched its  third foray into the world of social networking and, while invitations are still limited, early reports suggest that Google+ includes several encouraging features to help users control their online presence and keep their data secure.  Google has a mixed history in this field, their first attempt, Orkut, has a large following in several countries but never really caught on in the US while their second, Google Buzz, was a disaster which shared information without users’ consent with individuals with whom they may have had only the slightest connection.  It appears that, with Google+, the company  has incorporated the lessons of its previous errors, as well as the messages from critics of other social networking services.

The first and most important innovation in Google+ is that it moves away from the model of opt-in security and towards one of opt-in sharing.  When placing content on Facebook or MySpace most updates are public by default.  The user needs to explicitly tell the service not to share and, even then, doing so is cumbersome and difficult.   In Google+ each update requires the user to explicitly state who will be able to see the content.  He or she can choose to make content available to the entire web, to specific groups of friends, or even to a single individual and, until a user explicitly states that content will be shared, it is not.  This requires users to think about whom they are sharing with, and makes it much easier for them to avoid inadvertently placing material they would rather keep private in front of the entire world.

Also unlike Facebook, Google+ does not require users do divulge their real name in order to use the service.  Facebook’s Real Name policy has been criticized by Human Rights activists because it simplifies the process of governments tracking their activities online.  Although Google requires a name to be  associated with an account, Google+ allows pseudonyms enabling users to separate their online and real-world identities.

Although concerns still exist, particularly around transparency in Google’s policies with regards to government requests to provide information or remove content, it is encouraging to see steps in the social networking space to help users manage their online personas.  As Facebook continues to push members to divulge more and more information that can be sold to advertisers, it should be interesting to see how users respond to the option to exercise more control.


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Posted in Blog | 2 Comments »

  • http://Facebook Simon Axten

    Hi Gabriel,

    Thanks for your post. I work for Facebook and thought I’d drop in to make a few points. First, we don’t share information with advertisers, and we explain this clearly on our privacy “Learn More” page, which is accessible from any Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation.php. Instead, our ad system works by pairing a message with an audience, so, for example, a store in San Francisco that sells running gear can choose to show ads to people who have indicated on their profile that they live in San Francisco and are interested in running. The advertiser only ever receives anonymous data reports about who viewed and clicked on the ad, and people who meet the criteria will see the ad no matter what privacy settings they’ve selected for their information. In other words, a person who shares with friends only (or even with a single person) is just as likely to receive an ad as one who shares more broadly.

    Facebook also provides people with a couple easy ways to control their sharing on a per post basis. The first is the lock icon in the publisher (the box at the top of the profile where you post content), which, when clicked, allows you to choose an audience for your content at the time that you post it. The second is Groups, a product we launched in October of last year that allows you to build a space for important groups of people in your life and share only with those people. You can learn more about groups here: https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=434700832130.

    Finally, I would direct you to this blog post about the experience of one Google + user, which indicates that Google’s policy on names is actually quite consistent with ours: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/07/google-profiles-pseudonym-avatar-names-suspension-policy.html. Like Google, we require people to use their real name on their profile, but offer an alternate name field so they can include other names people might know them by. You can add an alternate name on Facebook by going to your account settings.

    Please don’t hesitate to contact us in the future if you have questions about our product or policies. You can do so at any time by emailing press@fb.com. Thanks again.

    Simon Axten

  • Fenny

    I have to disagree with pretty much everything in this post. I have a FB account not in my real name, which I’ve had for around 5 years. However, whether or not I use my real name on Google+ (and I understand they are closing down non-real names), it is linked to my google account that does have a real name attached to it, which I don’t want.

    FB is very easy to set the default posting to Friends Only, which is how I have it set up. It’s also very easy to change to specific groups or individuals, which I use occasionally, or everyone, which I use very occasionally.

    My beef with FB is less to do with who can see my posts and more to do with how poor their overall security is in terms of open photos being stolen by other users and the amount of spam that the site has.

    As for advertising, it’s very easy to block out any adverts at all using AdBlock Plus.