Facebook is one of many social networking sites available online. Others include Bebo, Myspace and Twitter. Like these other sites, Facebook has a responsibility to avoid distributing its user’s personal information without their consent.
The site is banned in countries such as Pakistan, Iran and China, and many companies have also boycotted the website to discourage its employees from wasting their time on it. The website has been active now for more than six years.
Facebook – An Online Phenomenon
Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg in the October of 2003, while studying as a sophomore at Harvard University, Massachusetts. This developed into a local social interaction site for other Harvard students. In January 2004, Zuckerberg launched the site as ‘Thefacebook’. Within months the site had grown beyond the university, branching into Stamford, Columbia and Yale. In 2005, the name Facebook was officially adopted, and on the 26th of September 2006, Facebook became available to anyone over 13 and with a valid e-mail address.
In the years since its inception, countless investors have contributed to Facebooks revenue, and in 2007 the websites value was estimated at approximately $15 billion. But with all its success, Facebook has been the focus of numerous criticisms and lawsuits.
Problems With Facebook In the Past
The first time Facebook came under fire was in 2004 when a company called ConnectU (founded by a classmate of Mark Zuckerberg) claimed that Facebook had used their original idea and utilized their source codes. The case was not resolved until early 2008 with a mutual arrangement.
In mid-July 2008, a photographer created a false Facebook page under the pretense that it belong to an individual whom she had previously fallen out with. The page erroneously portrayed the individual as a devious and untrustworthy homosexual. The photographer was ordered to pay £22,000 in damages for ‘defamation’ and ‘invasion of privacy.’
The Current Controversy Surrounding Facebook
Recently, Facebook has been the centre of more controversy regarding breach of privacy. According to Ben Edelman, a professor at Harvard Business School, the sites administrators have been distributing the personal information of many of its users to online advertising companies, which violates Facebooks privacy policy. So by simply clicking on a seemingly innocuous ad on a profile page, advertisers can instantly obtain such information as the users name, age, address and hometown.
Facebook has declared this issue to be a simple loophole that has now been closed, but Professor Edelman is less than convinced. His warning to Facebook users is a simple one: “If you go to your own profile and then click on an ad, the advertiser will know who you are.”
Wayne Kelso - Being an individual of Scottish blood, I felt that I was born to be a scientist, and undertook an honours degree in Biomedical Science. As ...
