TOWNSHEND — I logged into Facebook recently, and I observed that a friend had “Liked” a page for an organization that I had spent a few years working with. I automatically went to the page and clicked “Like” as well, without paying much attention.
Within a few minutes, a mutual friend had also clicked the button. I then congratulated the organization for making the public-relations move of putting up the page and asked who was in charge of it.
A short time later, it was pretty obvious that no one was in charge.
Curious, I went back to the page and actually examined it this time. This was not a page sponsored by the organization, but one that Facebook had put up because it was listed in a database. At the very bottom of the page is a note, “Business location information provided by American Express.” The organization now has a real Facebook page and a “claim” has been made to the original one.
I not only created a Facebook page for the organization by clicking on just a few boxes, one of which confirmed that I was 13 years or older, but I then set about to claim the Facebook “Place” page.
Was I given the authorization to do so? Of course I was, but the no-hassle way in which I accomplished it seemed to fall right into the category of a great potential phishing pond that even tells one where to cast the line because of the “Like” count.
My good friends at the Brattleboro Fire Department have two Facebook pages, one of which has 74 “Likes.” Neither of those pages seems to be endorsed by the department.
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That little incident started me thinking about all the social media curiosities I have experienced in the last two months.
I have a LinkedIn account. I have no idea why, but I have been getting all kinds of connection requests from people I don't know to an e-mail address I did not register.
I surmised that they were probably my customers who had foolishly given LinkedIn access to their e-mail accounts, until I got an e-mail from LinkedIn that told me my nonexisting account had been canceled.
Within the parameters of my real account, I received a request for a connection to someone I do know and found out that the individual had not established an account.
Facebook has been playing games as well.
I have closely watched my privacy settings. I do not use applications, I log on using a secure connection, and I have never knowingly allowed Facebook access to my e-mail accounts.
My wife became a member, so I went to her page prepared to send a friend request, only to find out Facebook had already done that. Curious, yes, as there are many others on Facebook with her first and last name. I dismissed it at the time, largely because Facebook was refusing to let me list her as my wife, and I was attempting to figure out why.
It happened a second time with a very important local friend. He set up an account and e-mailed me, the “old-fashioned way,” that he had done so. I went to his page only to find that the friend request had already been sent. I had stated his first name in only one post, ever, and had mentioned him by first name only in private Facebook messages to mutual friends.
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We tend to forget that technology corporations like Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, and Google are just that - corporations.
Corporations, no matter their cute little slogans, exist only to make a profit. That is it. They are not good or evil; they have a single focus - profit - and they will do whatever they can to beat expectations.
The technology companies that have become a part of our daily lives are, in reality, no different at all from ExxonMobil and BP. Honestly, would you give BP the password to your e-mail account?
It is often very easy to see when the oil giants put profits ahead of civic responsibility, as the results are normally very visible to the public and to the press: a huge slick fouling inland or ocean waters. There is no hiding it, and it gets investigated.
The technology companies are best compared to credit-reporting agencies. Credit agencies actually know less about you than some of the new start-up companies who scour the social networking sites creating a dossier on everyone and anyone - a dossier that is for sale for the right price.
Strict laws regulate the behavior of the credit agencies and, while the companies don't always obey the law, individuals are provided a fundamental list of “rights” in the face of misinformation or misbehavior.
My family has been in litigation twice with credit agencies who were allowing firms access to our accounts when it was not permissible. They argued that it caused us no harm.
We argued that it was against the law, period.
Not so, currently, with the major technology companies that we deal with. It would seem that the government places more emphasis on being able to easily access all that data than actually setting some parameters for the use and ownership of our data, no matter how it was accumulated.
When TRW (now Experian) went into Norwich and listed all people in that town who had paid their property taxes as “delinquent,” that was the technology equivalent of an oil spill. It revealed many problems with data collection all over New England.
But, in most instances, faulty data has an impact on one person at a time - you.
By law, individuals are given a right to see the data that credit agencies have accumulated and to dispute incorrect items before they become a problem.
If an individual is denied credit, a job, or an apartment, because of something on a credit report, additional rights are available.
An individual has no rights if he or she is denied a job because of what might have been written on Facebook, even if it was done by an imposter or just someone with the same name.
For all anyone knows, a list of friends might reveal someone whom a prospective employer deems threatening.
It will take that oil spill to get any serious attention; meanwhile, individual leaks in the pipeline will happen.
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No, I am not going to stop using Facebook any more than I am going to stop buying gasoline. I like the interaction on Facebook, as surely as I enjoy taking my motorcycle out for a ride.
I am on the downside of my fifth decade, and the potential impact on me does not equal the potential impact on our young, who are far less reserved than I in their use of the media. I tend to view things online as I do when I am riding the motorcycle: Danger everywhere. Pay attention, always.
So the next time you post an important and, perhaps, sensitive, document “in the cloud,” think twice.
Above all, be careful out there.