Privacy and The Facebook and The Google

Two important technological events in privacy this week. One has made headlines many times over, and stopped qualifying as "news" about two days ago in the fast-paced Internet echo chamber. Facebook tried to roll out a new Terms of Service that would have given the company ownership over all things posted to the site by its 175 million users. Privacy rights be damned.

Folks weren't too happy to learn of the threat to their ownership of their photos, notes, videos, beings, etc. The mass Internet protests caused CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to cave. Privacy/ownership rights were reinstated, and a new Bill of Rights will be established for users. Any James Madison version 2.0's should surf over to Facebook and get involved in the drafting of the social networking site's Bill of Rights.

Privacy is still a major issue on Facebook. Check out this guide to privacy settings on All Facebook (The Unofficial Facebook Resource) to make sure that the things you want private stay that way. And the guide doesn't say it, but hide your birth date. Depending on your settings, your friends will still know to write on your wall on the big day, but pseudo-friends and scary strangers won't be able to use your DOB for bad things. (More on that in a future post.)

In privacy ebbing news, a less-reported story is Google's win in a privacy case over its Street View application. The application allows us to map an address and zoom in to street level-- you can see people on the street, the facade of homes, cars parked in front of houses... but not in real time. A couple in Pennsylvania, The Borings, had sued Google Street View for violating their privacy by putting photos of their house online, despite "private road" signs at the end of the street leading to their home. A judge dismissed the case. From CNet:

Google claims to be legally allowed to photograph on private roads, arguing that privacy no longer exists in this age of satellite and aerial imagery.

"Today's satellite-image technology means that...complete privacy does not exist," Google said in its response to the Borings' complaint.

Yep, that's right. The Google won. Because complete privacy does not exist.

Facebook Withdraws Changes in Data Use [New York Times]
10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know [All Facebook]
Google wins Street View privacy suit [CNet]

Exhibitionism, 'Sexting' and Teens' Not-So Private Parts

We hope to move on to less salacious topics in the future, but this blog's second post will again touch on the topic of nudity. (What else might one expect from a blog with "private parts" in its title after all?)

The Aiken Standard reports on sex crime charges against two Ohio teens. The crime of one of the teens was taking a photo of herself naked with her cell phone (creation of child pornography) and sending the photo to her boyfriend (distribution of child pornography). The crime of the other teen, her boyfriend, was looking at the photo (consumption of child pornography). Apparently, "sexting" is all the rage at high schools these days. And, judging from the amount of hits resulting from a "sexting" on Google News, prosecuting the crime is all the rage across the country too.

The New York Post is on to the trend and even tracked down an image from a Manhattan teen's cell phone for its readers' viewing pleasure. The media sexting obsession seems to have been spurred by a few cases prosecuted nationwide, but also by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy's study, released last month, which found that 20% of teens have sexted. If we are really in a post-private age where exhibitionism comes naturally, our response is, "Only 20 percent?"

The sexual behavior of the young never ceases to shock the old. What seems novel to the older seasoned generations these days is how teens are using technology to enable their wild and sexually deviant ways. For example, see this recent article on teens and the "faceless and amoral world of cyberspace" in England's Daily Mail: Generation Sex.

That many a teen is hormone-charged and sexually irresponsible is not terribly shocking. That the hormone-charged teen taking a cell phone photo of herself undressed will face criminal charges is a bit shocking.

On the one hand, teens do shed their personal privacy by exposing themselves through naked images sent out into the world via text. But even if these "pornographers" are minors, it's amazing that some kind of privacy/ownership rights do not extend to their self-portraits. In the name of protectionism, authorities intervene, telling the kids, essentially, "It's true. No privacy for you. Those images are not private; they are illegal and prosecutable."

Police shocked by what they find on kids' phones [Aiken Standard]
SEX 'CELLS' FOR NAKED TEENAGERS [New York Post]
How the faceless and amoral world of cyberspace has created a deeply disturbing... generation SEX [Daily Mail]