In this class we examine issues around privacy, terms of service, and identity management.

1. COMP 113
Social Media & Online Communities, Summer School 2012
6: Privacy, terms & identity

2. Remember that Tuesday and Wednesday
classes swap next week!
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3. PART 1: Terms of
privacy
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4. Recall these from Tuesday?
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5. TOS and privacy policies
 Provided by all community-driven websites
– E.g., Facebook, Twitter, Ning, etc.
 Governs collection, storage, transfer, usage, etc.
of user data by operators (services)
 Sets expectations of behaviour and
responsibilities of both parties
 Users agree to adhere to TOS and privacy policy
 Lays out consequences of breaching TOS or
privacy guidelines

6. How many of you just click “accept”?
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7. Types of data collection
 Mandatory personal information:
– Collected on registration
– Name, email address, password
 Optional personal information:
– Identity driven
– Biography, photos, tags, location, interests, ...
 Log information:
– Automatic (IP address, browser, visited pages, ...)
– 3rd party services (Google analytics)
– Cookies (file stored on your machine)

8. Google knows all
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9. Privacy
 Typically legal requirement to provide a
privacy (data usage) policy:
– e.g., privacy act 1993 NZ
 Issues:
– Implicit agreement
– Jurisdictions
– Policy relating to children (min. age)
– Business acquisitions, bankruptcy, ...
– Disclosure to law enforcement

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14. “As social media become more embedded in
everyday society, the mismatch between the
danah boyd says ...
rule-based privacy that software offers and
the subtler, intuitive ways that humans
understand the concept will increasingly
cause cultural collisions and social slips.”
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15. [Source: http://online.wsj.com/] 15

16. Facebook Like button
 Used on 3rd party websites
 Clicks send information to user’s profiles & to Facebook
 Does not require click!
 But what else: “... assemble a vast amount of data
about Internet users' browsing habits.”
 Soon: ‘... for a brand or check in at a store could find
those actions appearing on their friends' pages as a
"Sponsored Story" paid for by advertisers.’
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17. Facebook says ...
“We do not share or sell the information we see
when you visit a website with a Facebook social
plugin to third parties and we do not use it to deliver
ads to you. In addition, we will delete the data (i.e.,
data we receive when you see social plugins)
associated with users in 90 days. We may keep
aggregated and anonymized data (not associated
with specific users) after 90 days for improving our
products and services. This is consistent with
standard industry practice.”
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20. Time for a short commercial break
Go on, get outside!

21. Time for you to get busy
 Compare Facebook and Twitter privacy policies
and answer these questions:
1. Which privacy policy is easiest to locate?
2. Which is the most onerous and why?
3. Which (if any) appears to hold user’s interests as
paramount?
4. Which service do you trust more?
5. Anything in the policies that you find especially
troubling?
6. Are there any other privacy issues that these
services can’t control?
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22. END OF PART 1
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23. PART 2: Identity
management
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25. What do people do to manage accounts?
 Use the same username/password for multiple
sites
 Use their browser's ability to remember their
password (enabled by default)
 Don't register for the new site
 Don't ever log in to the site
 Log in once, click "remember me"
 Click the back button on their browser and never
come back to the site
 Maintain a list of user IDs and passwords in an
offline document
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26. Other more secure methods
 Store account details in a “password vault”:
– On your PC (e.g., protected by fingerprint recognition)
– In a portable USB device, protected by a strong pass
phrase
– On a trustworthy online service, e.g., mashedlife.com
 Login using an OpenID account where possible
 Use popular online service (e.g., Facebook Connect,
Twitter OAuth, ...)

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29. Social logins are good because
 86% respondents will change behaviour:
– 54% might leave the site and not return
– 26% would go to a different site if possible
– 6% would just simply leave or avoid the site
– 14% would not complete the registration
 88% admitted to supplying incorrect
information or not answering all fields
 90% admitted to leaving a website if they
couldn’t remember login details (was 45%)

30. OpenID
 OpenIDs are URLs (i.e., your identities)
 Find a provider (e.g., MyOpenID, Yahoo, ...)
 Log into any site that supports OpenID
 Not overly successful

31. Facebook Connect
 What happens?
– Login into 3rd party
websites
– Approve level of data
access between Facebook
and website
– See if your friends have
also connected to the
website
– Publish content to
Facebook through the
website
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33. The End
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