webrampage

As the web gets more social our privacy does become less ensured too. I am sure you are aware of that; if not this is something you might wanna take a minute and give a small thought to.

First of all, let me start off by saying, “Whatever you don’t want the world to know, don’t put it online.” That should be the first thing in your mind when you’re concerned about your privacy. Doesn’t matter how much control a site gives you over your privacy, but always assume whatever you put out there is public information.

People have lost jobs because of what they had previously expressed online. Now that is very scary, and that should come as a warning to us. Just because we are behind a screen that should not mean that we should feel free to speak whatever we please.

One site where I recommend always staying on top of privacy settings is Facebook. That’s the place where anyone can see what you’ve been upto by viewing your pictures, videos, status updates and wall posts. Do make sure you that you have revoked permissions to 3rd party applications that you no longer have a use for. That is very important because we do not know what these people are doing with our info.

After all, it is your responsibility to be updated on privacy issues and setting on whatever platform you are using. Be smart and be safe as the web gets smaller and more connected.

Remember when all those quizes were going around Facebook? It was like next best thing before FarmVille came along. Everyone was taking those damn quizzes, and we allowed them access to our walls and personal info just so we could take them.

I remember doing like tons of those. All my friends were doing it and it was like a little fad. The tittles just made us so damn curious that we couldn’t resist spending a minute or so to get the damn results. What I do regret now is allowing all of them access to my information (especially when privacy concerns on Facebook are higher than ever).

What’s worse is that I currently have authorized over 200 applications (most of which are these little quizzes) and there is no way to revoke these permissions at once. I would have to fix them one by one and it would just take forever. This is really sad. I’m wondering why Facebook doesn’t look into this rather than pretending that they’re all so concerned about our privacy.

I’m gonna do some research and try to find a way to work around it. Maybe a 3rd party application. I hope I don’t have to do all this work manually and even if I have to, I’ll do it because I’m really concerned about giving so many people access to my info and especially when I’m not sure what they’re doing with it.

Yeah well I was just going through Gmail’s TOS and I found something fishy. Something not so friendly. Something that freaked me out.

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.

11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.

I’m not a lawyer, but what I understood after reading this a few times is that you basically give Google the permission to mess with your emails. They can do whatever they want. No privacy! I don’t know what else to say. I feel like Google’s little bitch.

I knew that Google had a lot of privacy issues, but woah… this is like taking it to the next level. I’m a bit shocked to be honest. I never thought they would have this in their TOS. Smart corporate bastards! Now we can’t take any legal actions. They’ll just say that we agreed to it.

This reminds me of the rumours about Google thinking of displaying people’s emails in their search results because they thought it could help other people (for some weird reason). I hope Google doesn’t do that. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it.

The thing that I pointed out in Gmail’s TOS was the same issue with Google Chrome’s TOS. There was a lot of complaining and warnings about it. People were fucking pissed. They wouldn’t even download Chrome because of that. Google came out and told us that it was a mistake. I’ll just quote what Gizmodo said, “Google knew it was in there and hoped it would slide.”

And you know what? The TOS for Gmail is actually the TOS for Google. They use the same thing for all their shit. So, doesn’t that mean we’re completely fucked? They just know way too much stuff about us and now they can do whatever they want with those info. Kinda creepy since Google isn’t as innocent as it pretends to be.

Well I don’t know what you guys are thinking, but I’ll stop using Gmail. Well actually I don’t really use Gmail anymore. I just use it to chat with a few people who doesn’t use Live Messenger (aka MSN). But, I would really appreciate if you shared how you feel about this and what you’ll be doing.