Lawsuits are not uncommon for large companies like Facebook. What might be, at least to some folks, is when the company lawyer says Facebook can’t violate something that does not exist. They are talking about privacy.
Related: Facebook Monitors Offline Behavior to Determine if You Are a “Hate Agent”
I’ve made my thoughts clear on this. There is no real privacy on the internet, and there never was any. If you play there, you are exposing your information to the largest public playground ever conceived.
If you have a mobile device with apps to which you have given permissions (microphone, camera, etc.) you’ve granted them rights to some extent or other potentially abrogating state and federal protections. You’re helping ‘Big Brother,’ in other words.
If you do these things fully aware of the consequences, good for you – you’ve nothing about which to complain. If not, you’d best get some learnin’ because as we’ve already learned, the State, depending on who is running it, has no qualms about spying on everyone – Stasi-like, including press, or asking third parties to spy on you for them.
As to privacy on Zuckerberg’s behemoth, Facebook’s argument is thus:
“There is no invasion of privacy at all, because there is no privacy,” Snyder said.
In an attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out, Snyder further claimed that Facebook was nothing more than a “digital town square” where users voluntarily give up their private information.
If you are “out in public,” you have little to no legal presumption of privacy. Facebook claims that’s what Facebook is, so there.
Whether or not that holds up in court turns on a lot more than the digital reality of a vast open ocean of information predators littered with fragile sunken spheres built on promises to hold back the prying horde. Facebook has, on occasion, suggested that privacy was important.
If Facebook made promises it didn’t keep, then there’s a case. Lawyers will find other examples that show either negligence or malice on the part of Facebook, and it won’t be the first time. But the problem of dumping your life out on an open platform designed for that purpose and expecting it to remain private seems silly to me.
It’s like a secret. Once more than one person knows about it, it’s not a secret anymore.
Your best bet is not to share it on a free open platform (or anywhere else if it is that sensitive) and to pay a third party outfit (like LifeLock, etc.,) to protect the most critical information “out there” from financial or identity fraud for example.
As for privacy, it’s not what it used to be, and unless you unplug and stay “off the grid,” you may want to find yourself a new definition. Not that even that will help you much these days.
