My friends Will Moffat and James Home, and their friend Peter Burns, created a site to highlight just how exposed your Facebook updates are: Openbook. It’s an interface to Facebook’s public search API, and the first thing you should probably do with it is search for a phrase from one of your recent status updates. If it shows up, change your privacy settings!
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I occasionally read Consumerist, and a trope on that site (and perhaps in the larger culture) concerns company spokespeople stating that they take (insert some egregious abuse or screwup here) “very seriously”. This line is used so often, and is folowed by meaningful action so rarely, that it has become more or less synonymous with empty posturing. This is why the last paragraph of this article in the San Francisco Chronicle today made me laugh out loud:
CIA spokesman George Little offered a brief response to the case, saying the agency takes its obligation to the U.S. courts seriously.
—Nedra Pickler, Associated Press. “CIA committed fraud in court, judge rules”. SFGate.com, 21 Jul 2009.
I know this has been on BoingBoing already, but it seems so ridiculous that I can’t resist posting it here too:
[The City of Bozeman]‘s background check policy … states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate
(emphasis mine)
—“Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns”, Dan Boyce, montanasnewsstation.com, 18 Jun 2009