This isn’t hypothetical. Until today, I had a Facebook account. No more.
At one time, there were over 3,300 Facebook friends. Given the overwhelming number of invitations and notices for nuisance applications involving mafia wars, farming, zoos, etc., in December, I got rid of over 90% of these friends who were cluttering my life with unwanted anecdotes and app notices.
The final straw is Facebook’s absolute disregard for your personal privacy. Although Facebook has repeatedly changed its privacy policy, it is still unclear who gets what information about you as a Facebook account holder. Frankly, I’m not sure if Facebook actually honors its policy now or in the past.
In particular, Facebook has taken a very “everything’s public” stance on your account content, including your photos, sexual orientation, relationship status, posts regarding your business and personal life. Even when you block applications from seeing your personal data, it is unclear and unlikely that apps harvesting data from a friend’s Facebook account who use them will respect your privacy.
And if you don’t trust Facebook to safeguard your personal information in your Facebook Account, why use it?
For example, let’s say that a Russian hacker develops a cute little app one of your friends installs that involves saving baby seals, curing cancer, protecting the children, etc. On its face, the app sounds like it is doing something noble. But what if that hacker’s app is harvesting your Facebook data simply because your FB friend installed it? Even though you have nothing to do with the app and may not know of its existence?
Would the stuff you post (and friends post about you) on Facebook be enough information for someone to steal your identity, get new credit cards, hack your Facebook account or e-mail? Did you know that the top keyword searches online for “facebook account” also involve the word “hack.” Yes, that’s right. The number one goal of those searching online for information about Facebook accounts want to know how to hack those accounts. Does that make you feel safe?
It doesn’t even have to be a malware app that does it. For instance, a Facebook software glitch recently allowed users to read other people’s FB chat conversations without their knowledge or permission.
What about data mining for legitimate profit? Is Facebook or any of its app developers creating profiles from the data it collects about you, cross-referencing it with other data available elsewhere, and targeting you both offline and online for marketing based upon your information? Let’s face it. Facebook has very few alternatives for making money except by using/misusing your personal information by selling it to others. The same goes for free Facebook applications.
Facebook’s flippant attitude toward your personal privacy is just one reason that Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are taking a hard look at cracking down on Internet privacy abuses. And the company asked for it by mistreating you as a “friend.”
How do you delete your Facebook account?
Here’s what I recommend as of today (of course, Facebook may change links and policies over time so be aware that they may have different obstacles in place if you wait to do it.
1. Delete all the information about you in your profile. Everything.
2. Delete all of your “friends.”
3. Delete all of your photos (including photo albums and profile photos) and untag yourself in photos your friends posted and then tagged you.
4. Delete your Facebook account.
Note that deleting is different than deactivating. If you deactivate your account, everything stays in place and you could come back a year from now and likely be able to log in and see everything just as you left it.
Even when you delete your account, Facebook will still let you back in for 14 days. Hint: If it is a habit to log into Facebook, make it difficult to do so for at least two weeks after you’ve deleted the account.
Perhaps Facebook will one day respect your privacy because it is the right thing to do or because the law requires it to do so.
Until that time, Facebook doesn’t deserve your information because the company doesn’t respect how important your data is to you. Delete your Facebook account and move on.
Recommended Reading
10 Reasons to Delete Your Facebook Account
Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative
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Great information. I’ve been very suspicious of Facebook’s privacy policies and settings. Changing them as much as they do confuses a-lot of users and leaves many opportunities for hackers to access private information, conversations and the like. Identity theft is at an all-time high right now and many Facebook users simply do not realize how vulnerable they actually are to theft, until it’s too late.
There is much talk of Facebook overtaking Google, and many business owners are opening Facebook accounts.
How Risky is this for Business?
Many Thanks
Gene Farrell
@Gene
One way that Facebook could make things easier is to allow totally separate business accounts from personal accounts. Putting up a fan page for one’s business still ties it to your personal account. I’d venture that 90%+ of Facebook users are susceptible to identity theft based upon their content, their friends’ content, and Facebook’s de facto “no privacy” policy.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the great information. I wanted to delete mi FB account in the past but other information I came across was implying that we actually cannot delete out accounts so I just thought I’ll be more careful with what I post on my wall etc.
But now I know that FB accounts can actually be deleted.
This is an eye opener, thanks a lot!
Anton.
@Anton
Glad to help. Hope you were able to successfully remove your personal information and permanently delete your Facebook account this time.
Been There – Done That! Thanks.
@Michael
Delighted to know that deleting your Facebook account worked out for you.
In reality, I have never found Facebook to have anything resembling security or privacy on it, not to mention poor access control. One need only search for a name using some good google techniques to provide proof.
As an infosec professional, I’ve been always suspicious of facebook and refuse to participate in any application that I did not choose myself, only disclosed in public what could pass the “Dan Rather” standard, and have treated it less as a personal tool and more as a marketing/branding/how to find me tool. For that reason, I will continue to be suspicious but will not yet delete the account. I will definitely use my presence and background to warn those who know and trust me to be sure to keep their private information off of facebook given their deliberate move to a complete non-privacy stance. I’m quite confident that Facebook’s privacy stance will not surive long, given that they now have the attention of congress.
Chris
@Chris
I suspect that Facebook apps used by your friends are still harvesting your data even if you don’t have the apps installed on your account. Facebook is treating online privacy like it is 2000 rather than 2010. My hunch is that Canada and the EU will also apply pressure for more Facebook privacy. Congress will just be the tip of the iceberg.
My family communicates via Facebook. I refused to join because I don’t believe in it.
Think I’ll try once again to get them to face reality.
Thanks for the info.
Sandra Bowman
@Sandra
That’s good to hear that you’re taking Facebook privacy issues seriously. Hope the rest of your family does too after you talk with them about it. I have friends and family who still use FB but many are stripping out most of their info from the account profiles. The big questions is whether the information they delete is still saved and used by Facebook and its application developers.
Also, FB is a huge time waster. To help you detach from the virtual world and get back into reality, check out http://suicidemachine.org/
Web 2.0 Suicide Machine’s pitch goes like this: “Tired of your Social Network? Liberate your newbie friends with a Web2.0 suicide! This machine lets you delete all your energy-sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alter ego. The machine is just a metaphor for the Website which moddr_ is hosting; the belly of the beast where the web2.0 suicide scripts are maintained. Our service currently runs with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn! Commit NOW!”
The service is not currently working but you can read about it:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/49470
http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/31/web-2-0-suicide/
From the FAQs:
If I start killing my 2.0-self, can I stop the process?
No!
If I start killing my 2.0-self, can YOU stop the process?
No!
What shall I do after I’ve killed myself with the web2.0 suicide machine?
Try calling some friends, take a walk in a park or buy a bottle of wine and start enjoying your real life again. Some Social Suiciders reported that their lives has improved by an approximate average of 25%. Don’t worry, if you feel empty right after you committed suicide. This is a normal reaction which will slowly fade away within the first 24-72 hours.
The light-hearted video below explains the benefits of committing Web 2.0 Suicide and disconnecting from “so many people you don’t really care about.” Unplugging from your social life online will leave you more time for your real life, which you’ve probably been neglecting.
KL
@KL
Agree that Facebook is also wastes time in addition to the privacy issues. Some info product marketers are profiting from using Facebook. But these products typically fall under the “get rich quick” or “get free money from the government” variety. Most reputable businesses will be hard pressed to find Facebook provides a profitable investment on time, energy, and money. The Facebook model is fundamentally flawed like MySpace but for different reasons.
I have represented myself in court recently over a 4 day period for a child custody case. Facebook and the information that was posted and available on particular accounts accounted for about 65% of the evidence I had presented. Parental alienation and child safety was proved very quickly.
The respondent continued to provide testimony that the account settings were set to the maximum security and that information should not have been accessible.
After permission being granted by the courts I was able to bring my laptop in and demonstrate how I or anyone else could access the information. By simply joining a locale group allowed you to see most if not all of information being posted on Facebook by the members of that group.
Currently we are awaiting the judge’s written decision to be received. But the child has been placed with me immediately after the last day of court until such time the decision is received from the courts.
Reason for the wait I believe is two fold.
1) The judge was an elderly lady who was not aware of how Facebook worked and had a hard time understanding the extent to which the information was being distributed and accessible on Facebook. By the end of the third day she had a very good understanding which I would believe was from researching the information on her own time.
2) The overwhelming amount of evidence provided which was mostly Facebook information and email communications I had with the respondents.
Facebook is not by any means securing the information that is being posted.
@Resell Rights
Thanks for the excellent example of how Facebook information can and will be used in ways that account holders don’t suspect will happen. Many prospective and current employers check Facebook behavior. Some college admissions offices do too. What is posted there can cost one dearly. And as you describe, it can even cost one custody of their child. As a personal aside, I won full custody in a lengthy court battle so fully understand what you must be going through. Good luck.
I suppose what’s ironic is that one of the reasons FaceBook grew so fast is because they gave so much control over what information people disclosed to various “levels” of friends.
As far as “hack” combined with FaceBook account being a popular search term, that shouldn’t be any surprise. That’s just the nature of hackers – they want to go after the big targets that might contain valuable information. On the other hand it is interesting that the global monthly search volume for “hack facebook” is 10 times that of “hack google”.
If you want a good sense of just HOW many people are looking for credit card numbers, working credit card numbers, credit card number generator along with a lot of other particular troubling searches just do a look up of credit card number in the google keyword tool.
Of course that just point to the reality of thinking through HOW and IF you really want to use a site like FaceBook which is obviously a big target for the same type of people who are trying to steal credit card numbers.
@Paul
Thanks for making some good points about Facebook, hackers, and credit card theft. People should be very careful what information they reveal online. Period. Facebook just happens to be a great example of what not to do as a social media site.
Thanks Mike,
It’s good to hear a voice of reason in this Internet
wilderness. You make a lot of sense maybe when
100,000 or so users delete their account they will
get the message. Thanks for your opinion.
Nick
Nick4033
@Nick
Thanks. I don’t wish Facebook ill will. Just expect, like most people, that they respect and protect privacy of their users.
Mike, this post definitely has me thinking about my Facebook account.
I really like how Facebook lets me connect with friends and family, but I am concerned about privacy.
We should all be careful about what we post and say online. We should not assume it’s private.
@John
You make a good point about connecting with friends and family using Facebook. And if Facebook cared one bit about this strong benefit, the company would treat the relationships and related privacy issues with respect rather than as an opportunity to exploit at the expense of their users. For those like you who continue to use Facebook, perhaps for the time being it would be good practice to limit the amount of personal information in a profile and take the conversations elsewhere as quickly as possible once connections/re-connections are made to limit data harvesting and identity theft risks.
Hackers will on get from Facebook what people post on Facebook or any other site online. If people don’t want personal information taken by a hacker, then they shouldn’t put their personal information online anywhere.
If you are going to target Facebook and delete your account because of the fear of personal information being taken by a hacker, then you might as well not go online at all.
If personal information isn’t put on Facebook, then personal information will not be taken by a hacker through Facebook.
Come on, you should be emphasizing to people to not put personal information online, not taking stabs at Facebook.
@Anthony
I agree with you that people should not be posting on Facebook information that they want to be kept problem. The big issue is that Facebook encourages posting of such data and then behind the scenes exploits the information and doesn’t believe the information should be protected. Facebook’s public face is to promote essentially a social get together between friends and family, eavesdrop on those conversations, and then use/misuse the information obtained…or simply let it leak out to third parties through sloppy coding and lax restrictions on third party application developers.
Do you mean to tell me you people haven’t seen the recent “South Park” episode about Facebook?
Attempting to delete your Facebook account is very dangerous … let’s just say, I hope you’re familiar with Disney’s groundbreaking film classic “Tron” (and very good at Yahtzee).
@Robert
Yes. Saw the SP episode. … and yes, Yahtzee!
I deleted my Facebook and MySpace accounts. I think social networking websites are a horrible waste of time and violation of privacy. There is much more to life than constantly updating your mood, posting hundreds of pics few people actually view, and caring about the perfect phrases to post. It’s interesting that when you delete your accounts, you can see who your real friends actually are…