Few Privacy Regulations Inhibit Facebook

Given how rapidly Facebook has reeled in new users, it seems people are not very concerned about protecting their privacy on the site. But they should be, says Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. He worries about not only what Facebook can do with personal information now, but what could be inferred from such data a few years down the road. For instance, in 2009 he showed that Social Security numbers can be guessed using public data, some of it from social networks.

Acquisti is particularly concerned that Facebook could combine external data with what it already knows about its users—a step that would be invisible to users. One potential solution, he says, would be to encrypt personal data in a way that prevents a social or ad network from identifying a person but still allows targeting of advertisements. However, such technology is still not fully developed and would also limit what can be done with a data storehouse, so legislation to require its use is unlikely anytime soon.

business, business impact, Facebook, privacy

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