Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg talking about the expansion.

The Daily Mail reported that Facebook is facing a mayor battle with US legislator over plans to expand their social network, especially after they were accused of putting their user's privacy at risk.

Facebook has been told to make it easier for their 500 million users to protect their personal details as the site opens more avenues for them to share their interests online.

 DONNA HOWELL a former vice president of the placer county historical foundation Stated "Facebook is rolling out such a system. But if users adopt the new Facebook messages, the social network will get much of their personal information. Which is raising more privacy fears?

Justin Brookman a senior resident fellow of the center for democracy and technology stated "in general offering more options for consumers is good however it's scary when a company like Facebook that has an incredible amount of data gets access to more".

Critics have complained that users' privacy is being dangerously breached, even putting people's life's at risk. An example is when in march Peter Chapman a convicted sex offender was jailed for 35 years on teeside for raping and murdering 17 year old Ashleigh Hall after meeting her on facebook and dupping her into meeting him.

In a recent report it was stated "users of Facebook should be careful when downloading new applications as many times users are giving right to the application to expose their personal details widely".

Hemu Nigam a 20 year old veteran in the field of online security stated that "individuals have to be the defender of their own privacy as you cannot rely on social networking sites especially Facebook".

"People are pretty clueless about how much information they’re putting online", says identity theft speaker and author John Sileo.

A debate on social media privacy was surveyed last year, at the centre of the storm was Facebook with its 500 million users across the globe. It was accused of giving short shrift of user’s privacy. Privacy experts disapproved of the tool that allowed some marketers and advertisers to make use of Facebook’s information on user’s connection

Facebook developers were reported to have a fixed a bug that allowed spammers to harvest users names and photos. In October of 2008 Facebook admitted that some of the most popular applications made for the social network site had been sending users personal information to dozens of advertisers and internet monitoring companies.

According to the Wall Street journal Facebook users are inadvertently providing access to their names and in some case even their friend’s names to advertising companies, through some popular applications. According to the journal investigation the issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook’s strictest privacy settings.

One of the ways Facebook lets down their user is through games, according to Ryan Peter the game company Zynga provides some of the most popular games in Facebook that include Farmville and mafia wars, there is up to 60 million users in these games. The problem is that the company Zynga has access to great detail about Facebook users who subscribe to these games. These games tend to be a popular and creative forum where facebookers tend to let down their guard and expose valuable information about themselves such as their age and marital and employment status.

Many web shoppers have noticed that products and items they look at online but don’t buy start following them around the internet. Ads for items start appearing on other sites they visit, the reason is an online adverstising practice known as retargeting where an individual's browsing habits are tracked to stalk the prospective buyer on the web, Wall Street journal (2009). Incidents like these have fuelled the debate over privacy controls and protection for people using social networking sites like Facebook.

Rachel Quigley a newspaper reporter stated "millions of Facebook users details were published on the internet, the list has been shared as a downloadable file which has now spread rapidly across the internet, prompting anger and concern from millions of users across the world".

The Germanys consumer protection minister criticised social networking site Facebook on failing to respect privacy, following a report of a serious flaw that allowed non- subscriber’s access to private data.

The Huffington Post reported that "Facebook users have received this message “OMG OMG OMG” … I can't believe this works! Now you can see who viewed your profile! On (LINK).”

The link goes to a application called ePrivacy or profile watcher. It supposedly allows users to see who has viewed their profile in exchange, the application demands unlimited access to a person's profile and personal information. The application can then pose as a person on Facebook and post status updates, share links and look at anything that has been shared with friends". This just shows the lack of privacy in Facebook. 

In a recent security report card by Digital Society, it was found that past issues surrounding privacy settings were still present on the site. It seems that Firesheep on Firefox may have contributed towards this. Troy Rogers at The Deadbolt reported that, "both Facebook and Twitter have unfortunately not managed to pass the encryption and identification process of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)". This basically means that users to a authentication page do not know for sure if the page is HTTP.

References

Emily Chung (2010) consumers want targeted marketing: Facebook. Available at: http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2010/11/30/facebook-targeted-marketing.html [accessed: 4 December.2010].

Steven Kwan (2010) Facebook app scams users. Available at: http://wildcat.arizona.edu/news/facebook-app-scams-users-1.1813851[accessed: 4 December. 2010].

Ryan Peter (2010) Facebook must get serious about privacy practices. Available at:http://www.edmondsun.com/opinion/x622283632/Facebook-must-get-serious-about-privacy-practices[accessed: 5 December.2010].

Kim Hyung-eun (2010) As social networks lights up web, many users still in dark on security. Available at: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2929052 [ accessed: 2 December.2010].

Adrian McCoy (2010) How you can prevent cyber security attack. Available at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10335/1107201-51.stm[ accessed:1 December.2010].

James Derk (2010) Compute: social networks pose security issues. Available at: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/compute113010/compute113010/ [accessed: 2 December.2010].

 Daily mail reporter (2010) Facebook expansion is putting users privacy at risk, warn U.S legislators. Available at:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1269396/Facebook-puts-users-privacy-risk-expansion-plans-warn-U-S-legislators.html#ixzz16hFt8KT5 [accessed: 2 December. 2010].

Donna Howell (2010) Facebook's new messaging plan worries some privacy advocates. Available at: http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/554850/201011241909/Facebooks-New-Messaging-Plan-Worries-Some-Privacy-Advocates.aspx[ accessed: 5 December. 2010].

Maddy Rowe (2010) Facebook and Twitter failed privacy risk report. Available at: http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net/20101107/facebook-twitter-failed-privacy-risk-report/[ accessed: 29 November.2010].

Tim Ollason (2010) Facebook banned: where and why. Available at: http://www.onlinesocialmedia.net/20101126/facebook-banned-where-and-why/ [accessed: 30 November. 2010].

Claire Bates and David Gardner (2010) Facebook bows to user pressure with privacy control shake- up but falls short of EU demands: Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1281647/Facebook-bows-user-pressure-privacy-control-shake--BUT-falls-short-EU-demands.html [accessed: 30 November. 2010].

Rachel Quigley (2010) Facebook privacy fears for 100m users as their personal details are published on file- sharing site. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1298600/Facebook-privacy-fears-details-millions-users-published-Pirate-Bay.html [accessed: 30 November. 2010].

Stephen Foley (2010) Facebook: with friends like these. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/facebook-with-friends-like-these-2134917.html[ accessed: 2 November. 2010].

(2010) Major facebook privacy breach revealed. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/major-facebook-privacy-breach-revealed-2109727.html[ accessed: 3 November. 2010].

AFP (2010) German ministers slam facebook for privacy glitch. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/german-ministers-slam-facebook-for-privacy-glitch-2109387.html [accessed: 3 November. 2010].