Facebook's goal is to serve advertisements that are more relevant to you than anywhere else on the web, but the personal information it gathers about you both with and without your consent can also be used against you in other ways. Facebook has a diverse array of compelling and useful features. It has helped families find lost pets and allows active-duty soldiers to stay in touch with their families; it gives smaller companies a chance to further their e-commerce efforts and larger companies a chance to solidify their brands; and, perhaps most obviously, Facebook makes it easier for you to keep in touch with your friends, relatives, local restaurants, and, in short, just about all the things you are interested in. These are the reasons so many people use Facebookit provides real value to users. The cost of participating in the Facebook platform is that your personal information is shared withadvertisers and with others you may not know. Facebook has a checkered past of privacy violations and missteps that raise doubts about whether it should be responsible for the personal data of billions of people. There are no laws in the United States that give consumers the right to know what data companies like Facebook have compiled. You can challenge information in credit reports because of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but until recently, you could not obtain what data Facebook has gathered about you. It's been different in Europe: for several years, users had the right to demand that Facebook turn over a report of all the information it had collected on individuals. In 2018, Facebook allowed users to download all the information they had collected on a person, even though users had no legal right to demand that information. Think you own your face? Not on Facebook, thanks to its facial recognition software for photo tagging of users. This "tag suggestions" feature is automatically on when you sign up, and there is no user consent. A federal court in 2016 allowed a lawsuit to go forward contesting Facebook's right to photo tag without user consent. This feature is in violation of several state laws that seek to secure the privacy of biometric data. A Consumer Reports study found that among 150 million Americans on Facebook every day, at least 4.8 million were willingly sharing information that could be used against them in some way. That includes plans to travel on a particular day, which burglars could use to time robberies, or Liking a page about a particular health condition or treatment, which might prompt insurers to deny coverage. Credit card companies and similar organizations have begun engaging in weblining, taken from the term redlining, by altering their treatment of you based on the actions of other people with profiles similar to yours. Employers can assess your personality and behavior by using your Facebook Likes. Thirteen million users have never adjusted Facebook's privacy controls, which allow friends using Facebook applications to transfer your data unwittingly to a third party without your knowledge. Why, then, do so many people share sensitive details of their life on Facebook? Often, it's because users do not realize that their data are being collected and transmitted in this way. A Facebook user's friends are not notified if information about them is collected by that user's applications. Many of Facebook's features and services are enabled by default when they are launched without notifying users, and a study by Siegel+Gale found that Facebook's privacy policy is more difficult to comprehend than government notices or typical bank credit card agreements, which are notoriously dense. Did you know that whenever you log into a website using Facebook, Facebook shares some personal information with that site and can track your movements in that site? Next time you visit Facebook, click Privacy Settings and see whether you can understand your options. However, there are some signs that Facebook might become more responsible with its data collection processes, whether by its own volition or because it is forced to do so. As a publicly traded company, Facebook now invites more scrutiny from investors and regulators. In 2018, in response to amaelstrom of criticism in the United States, and Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Facebook changed its privacy policy to make it easier for users to select their privacy preferences; to know exactly what they are consenting to; to download users' personal archives and the information that Facebook collects and shares, including facial images; to restrict click bait and spam in newsfeeds; to more closely monitor app developers' use of personal information; and to increase efforts to eliminate millions of fake accounts. Facebook hired 10,000 new employees and several hundred fact-checking firms to identify and eliminate fake news. For the first time in its history, Facebook is being forced to apply editorial controls to the content posted by users and, in that sense, become more like a traditional publisher and news outlet that takes responsibility for its content.Unfortunately, as researchers have long known, and Facebook executives understand, very few users estimated to be less than 12 percenttake the time to understand and adjust their privacy preferences. In reality, user choice is not a powerful check on Facebook's use of personal information. Although U.S. Facebook users have little recourse to access data that Facebook has collected on them, users from other countries have done better. In Europe, over 100,000 Facebook users have already requested their data, and European law requires Facebook to respond to these requests within 40 days. Government privacy regulators from France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands have been actively investigating Facebook's privacy controls as the European Union pursues more stringent privacy protection legislation. While Facebook has shut down several of its more egregious privacy-invading features, and enhanced its consent process, the company's data use policies make it very clear that, as a condition of using the service, users grant the company wide latitude in using their personal information in advertising. The default option for users is "opt-in"; most users do not know how to control use of their information; and they cannot "opt out" of all sharing if they want to use Facebook. This is called the "control paradox" by researchers: even when users are given controls over the use of their personal information, they typically choose not to use those controls. Although users can limit some uses of their information, an advanced degree in Facebook data features is required. Facebook shows you ads not only on Facebook but across the web through its Facebook Audience Network, which keeps track of what its users do on other websites and then targets ads to those users on those websites. Critics have asked Facebook why it doesn't offer an ad-free servicelike music streaming sitesfor a monthly fee. Others want to know why Facebook does not allow users just to opt out of tracking. But these kinds of changes would be very difficult for Facebook because its business model depends entirely on the largely unfettered use of its users' personal private information, just as it declares in its data use policy. That policy states very openly that if you use Facebook you agree to their terms of service, which enable it to share your information with third parties. In 2019 Facebook has come under withering fire for knowingly violating UK privacy rules, and global lobbying against stronger data privacy laws.

Question:

1 . Discuss about privacy and fair information practices.

2. Explain how the Internet challenges the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property.