Online Privacy is an Oxymoron

While today it can take a while before your public posts on sites such as Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook find their way to search engine results, both Microsoft (with their new Bing search engine) and Google (with their... well, you know google ) are seeking to improve their ability to search such content and have it appear in their search engine results.

It is being referred to as "real-time" information. Microsoft is betting on it as a part of a strategy to compete with Google, who recently struck some deals with Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store and Amazon.com Inc. for the rights to post music links at the top of search results - according to a Wall Street Journal article released today.

Microsoft has made deals with Facebook and Twitter to allow them to better search this content. I suppose the question becomes, what is public content? Everything you tweet about on Twitter is public - there's no question there. But what about Facebook? You have to invite friends to join you online - but once someone is a friend, posting information to your "wall" is hardly a private matter.

I continually see people leaving comments on their walls and other peoples walls, as if it were a private, encrypted email. Wall posts such as "I got so drunk last night, I'm still hung over - give me a call girl-friend", and "I'm taking the family to Florida for a long over-due vacation next week!" are disturbingly common.

It is sort of like all of the world's technically-illiterate decided to assemble in the info-space known as Facebook. Because the service is easy to use - it is used - if not entirely in the way it was intended. We in the IT industry have seen this sort of thing before.

Back in the late 1980's, early 1990's, there was a huge push at many corporations to install Microsoft Windows Operating Systems (At the time, it was Windows NT Server 4.0). The promises of easy use, low maintenance, and high return on investment (ROI) sold executives into moving away from their legacy Novell Networks Servers. Windows Server looked easy enough. There was an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI), and everything just seemed to work, right out of the box. Then, of course, came the hang-over from that party. Massive amounts of unsecured servers connected to the Internet just waiting to be brutally penetrated.

It would seem the near future may hold similar realities for the mindless clickers and posters of personal information to online facilities.

Think about your Facebook wall like a bulletin board at work - or in a mall. Don't post things to your wall that you wouldn't post to such a public bulletin board. But, I'm sure I'm just going overboard about this. After all - you are all intelligent adults. You have all read the agreement you made with Facebook, right? You must know what you are doing. I'll shut up now.

Its time to hear what you have to say about this. Please leave me a post, and add to the conversation.

Metajunkie