Computers, Freedom, and Privacy

Birds of Feather: Social Network Sites and Third Parties[]

Thursday evening

Third parties are integrating more closely with Social Networking Sites (SNS). They provide SNS with identity relevant information that is not user-generated, and collect information from SNS via advertisement contracts or third party applications. Even without the users' consent.

What are the consequences of the tight coupling between SNS and third parties for users' privacy? We'll present and discuss perspectives from privacy experts and SNS insiders about how third parties impact user privacy, and what the future holds for SNS and third parties.

Consequences of integration for users[]

Recent examples of integration[]

From EPIC Alert 15.10: [1] MySpace Introduces 'Data Availability':

    http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080508/20080508006009.html

Google: A Friend Connected Web:

    http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/friend-connected-web.html

Announcing Facebook Connect:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20090611120018/http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=108

EPIC Social Networking Page:

    http://epic.org/privacy/socialnet/

EPIC Microsoft Passport Investigation Docket Page:

    http://epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/passport.html

Survey on 'Privacy Harms for Users of Social Network Sites[]

Survey online [2] (will take approx 7 minutes)