Internet Privacy as a Venn diagram

From Flowing Data:

Facebook juggernauts towards 500 million users

AllFacebook.com has observed that, based on linear projections of current sign-up rates, Facebook will pass the 500 million user milestone by the end of June. Using population data published by the CIA, we will therefore soon have the situation where only China and India as countries will have more people than Facebook (1.33 and 1.56 billion respectively). Projecting further, Facebook will have twice as many people as the US by year end (around 600 million), and approximately a billion dollars in revenue as well.

It remains to be seen whether the current privacy backlash against Facebook introduces unpleasant non-linearities into these projections. A recent informal poll taken by Graham Cluley of Sophos, found that almost two thirds of the 1588 respondents are considering leaving Facebook. If we round up the respondents to an even 1600, and noting that Facebook has more than 320 million users currently, the survey represents a sample of less than 0.0005% of all users (that’s just 5% of 1% of 1% of the total). Even so, PC World has reported the survey under the headline Study: 60 Percent of Facebook Users Mulling to Quit which, I hope you will agree, is a bit grandiose. This is an example of how the non-linearities of reputational risk start accruing against a company with widespread and sustained bad press - and more will follow.

Privacy may yet be the Black Swan of Facebook.

Two universities rethink Gmail migration plans

The University of California at Davis (UCD) and Yale University were considering moving their email systems onto Gmail, but both have put those plans on hold for the moment. The CIO of UCD, Peter Siegel, said that he was not prepared to risk the security or privacy of the school’s 30,000 faculty and staff.

Yale has delayed a more general migration to Google apps, including Gmail, citing security and privacy concerns over cloud-based management of their data. Michael Fischer, a computing professor, said that

Google stores every piece of data in three centers randomly chosen from the many it operates worldwide in order to guard the company’s ability to recover lost information — but that also makes the data subject to the vagaries of foreign laws and governments, Fischer said. He added that Google was not willing to provide ITS with a list of countries to which the University’s data could be sent, but only a list of about 15 countries to which the data would not be sent.

So there is a concern that the personal data of students and faculty is being stored outside US jurisdictions. However neither UCD or Yale ruled out migrating to Google cloud applications once there was adequate transparency for the protection of data.

Privacy degradation at Facebook

The EFF has an article on the changes to the privacy policy at Facebook over the last few years noting five significant changes (downgrades) since 2005. In short Facebook has flipped from a private social network to one where your data is largely public by default, mainly since Facebook can profit by selling this information to advertisers and business partners.

Here is the 2005 privacy language

No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

and the April 2010 version

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection

Quite a change. Matt McKeon has produced an interesting interactive infographic to depict privacy erosion on Facebook over the last 5 years

GPS and Road Privacy

The Las Vegas Sun has reported that the GPS tracking of drivers is being considered as a technology to support expected shortfalls in fuel taxes. The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT)  revealed at a meeting this week a study which estimates that reduced fuel taxation revenues due to the use of hybrid and gas-free cars could be as high as $6 billion by 2016.

Nevada is considering several schemes to support a payment model based on "vehicle miles travelled", including voluntary reporting (the honour system) all the way up to on-board GPS-based devices for wireless tracking of miles driven. While this may seem a wonderful opportunity for technologists to rollout a sophisticated system, privacy concerns were raised immediately.

Scott Rawlins, NDOT deputy director, said privacy is a central issue in the debate. "Some say we don't want Big Brother following us around," Rawlins said. "How do we protect the privacy of those vehicle owners and not have that sense out there?” No simple (or complex) answers to the privacy issue as yet.

In June last year I made a long post on the risk of degradation to the GPS service, based on an assessment of the GPS program by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the audit and investigative arm of the US Congress. The GPS privacy debate may yet be moot.