Is Facebook your friend?

Social network users associate the powerful communication network of Facebook with friends, but they might want to be aware that Facebook itself may not be so friendly.

In fact, failure to understand how to properly use social networking websites and search engines may lead to users losing their jobs or getting into trouble with the law.

A recent study by CareerBuilder.com, the largest job site in the United States, reported that 45 percent of employers are using social networking sites and Facebook in particular to screen possible employees. These employers are looking for anything that would throw up a red flag including information about underage drinking, drug use, sexually explicit talk, provocative pictures, hate speech and even lack of online communication skills.

People who have not grown up with a cell phone in their hand or a laptop in their lap may fail to understand how to keep “private” online information off the radar.

This lack of knowledge is aiding law enforcement, as well as employers, in cracking down on irresponsible social network users. One example of this is 20-year-old Tyrell Luebker, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, who was charged with underage drinking after accepting a friend request from an undercover officer that had attended the Oktoberfest near the campus. Luebker then posted pictures of himself drinking, in an album titled “Not Sober Fest.” Mr. Luebker and a few others were cited after being taken to the police station and identified in incriminating pictures.

Law enforcement officials aren’t the only people trying to track Facebook users’ behavior. Marketing organizations are also working with Facebook to broaden their impact by trying to get into friend networks. Facebook is proposing a new option that would allow users to view the websites their friends are viewing. Facebook explains that if a user travels to CNN.com and finds an article he likes, he would have the ability to “like” this article and in doing so his friends would be able to connect to the link. In the same manner, however, this same person were unaware he was logged into Facebook, and stumbled onto websites he did not wish his friends to know about, the friends would still be aware of his web searching. If this function is successful, Facebook wishes to compete with Google’s advertising.

Web-interface technology is developing at such exponential rates that Facebook’s power is moving beyond access solely to the web. The Droid and the iPhone now both work with Facebook pages and Google e-mail accounts. Through a password, the phones can acquire contact lists and other personal information in order to sync the phone apps to the online information. As much as this is the evolution of convenience, it provides a whole new platform for privacy to be lost and identities to be stolen.

The internet colossus, Google, has also admitted that they keep track of all searches made through their search engine. According to wiki.answers.com, over 300 million people use Google per day, which amounts to one massive archive of personal information. In fact, Google’s current privacy FAQ reads: “Like most Web sites, our servers automatically record the page requests made when users visit our sites. These ‘server logs’ typically include your web request, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser.”

In other words, yes, they keep the information you type. As much as Google promises to “do no evil” and avoid compromising their users, it is possible that an agency or private investor could buy out Google and all that comes with it.

One way to cut down potential privacy loss is to make sure Facebook privacy settings are set to “Only Friends,” other settings offer less protection. Taking care to avoid posting anything incriminating also prevents defamation problems.

As for using search engines, Google provides the most extensive, but comes with a privacy cost. Users can turn off “cookies” and delete history; however “cookies,” according to webopedia.com, are a message given to a web browser by a web server. The browser stores the message in a text file, and the message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized Web pages. When users enter a Web site using cookies, they may be asked to fill out a form providing such information as their name and interests. This information is packaged into a cookie and sent to the user’s web browser which stores it. The next time that user goes to the same web site, his or her browser will send the cookie to the web server.

The server can then use this information to present the user with custom web pages (like a welcome page with the user’s name on it).

But even if cookies are turned off, Google still records the IP address. IP addresses are like a computer’s signature. I would suggest using Google for licit information since it has such a broad database, otherwise use www.ixquick.com for topic-sensitive searches. Even though their database isn’t as large, your privacy is much more secure as they don't record your searches, cookies or IP address.

The Mainstream is a student publication of Umpqua Community College.