Posting “status updates,” reconnecting with old friends, sharing photos of your dog — the allure of Facebook as the web’s premier social networking site is well documented. It’s so irresistible, says Berkeley Law lecturer Chris Jay Hoofnagle, that Facebook’s 200 million users willingly sacrifice their personal privacy just to be part of the fun.
“It’s such a compelling platform that we volunteer information about ourselves,” says Hoofnagle, director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology’s Information Privacy Program. While many bemoan the lack of privacy in today’s wired world, he notes, “here we allow ourselves to be spied on so that we can have a rich Facebook profile.”
Hoofnagle studies consumer attitudes toward privacy and has commissioned polls to analyze consumers’ expectations when they enter personal information on web sites. And Facebook — which tailors on-screen ads to reflect users’ interests and until recently claimed ownership of any information its members posted — is hardly the first business to use data-mining tactics. “For a century at least, companies have employed more and more sophisticated methods to capture information and better sell things,” he says.
On campus, Hoofnagle was impressed with students’ privacy savviness when he lectured at a recent undergraduate seminar on computers and ethics. But he is also quick to remind Berkeley students that advertisers and marketers aren’t the only ones perusing their online profiles for personal details. “Employers are increasingly looking at Facebook and MySpace,” he says, “so our graduates are going to have to think about the repercussions of their postings.”
Compiling content from a wide range of news sites, the Berkeley China Internet Project runs the Graduate School of Journalism’s China news web site, China Digital Times. The site (www.chinadigitaltimes.net) mines the wealth of information available online in both English and Chinese, and provides original content including reporting, translation, interviews, analysis, and podcasts. Also on the site: daily reading recommendations from the Chinese blogosphere — including posts that squeak past government censors.
It almost sounds like science fiction: submit a DNA sample and receive a report that pinpoints variants in your genome suggesting possible risks for certain diseases. That’s the idea behind 23andMe , a Silicon Valley startup that also encourages participants to share their genome data online, in the hopes that researchers will discover patterns linking common diseases.
Consumers shouldn’t fear that such information will be used against them by insurers or employers, says Michael Eisen, associate professor of genetics, genomics, and development, and a 23andMe adviser. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 protects Americans against such discrimination. “What companies like 23andMe offer is a chance to take control of this information,” Eisen says, “so that you can understand what your DNA is saying.”
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