Facebook, Privacy and Data Mining

There are a bunch of thoughts to get out right now… I’ll try to organize them as coherently as possible.  But that’s one of the problems when you’re a non-linear thinker.

First of all, I need to know if someone has found a way to decipher good information from bad information… Sometimes it’s so hard to tell with some of these things I read.  That whole authority verses uncertainty dilemma.  I was directed to a website today by my friend Andrew Hunt (who happens to be a very talented Haligonian artist who’s made his way to New York).  At the end of the link is a little flash movie about Facebook.  And then at the bottom of that page there is a link to a blog reiterating the message in the flash movie.

The basic message is that the money which funded the initial startup of Facebook (which is reported to be 13 million bucks) came from a major networking firm called Accel Partners (which also have interests in BitTorrent, Real Player, and Macromedia)  Major players from Accel sit on the board of directors for an organization called BBN Technologies.  Jim Breyer, for example, also sits on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Oh LORD! Facebook is responsible for the marketing strategies at Wal-Mart.  That would totally explain the recent rash of Wal-Mart commercials that haven’t completely offended my senses… it’s all user-created.

I was also getting annoyed recently because some of my new favorite music has been on stupid Ashley Furniture commercials, The Postal Service was playing in FutureShop… Could it be that nothing is really indy anymore.  The rate of trend co-option has sped up to the point that if you had a large enough Internet social movement to test particular market patterns, you might actually see results within the market in as little as two to three months.  Impossible to test though because in order to plan such a thing you would have to use the very tools that they provide us with.

The Facebook privacy policy states:

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile. Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links).

If you read Facebook’s full privacy statement, they are very blunt about the use of your data for marketing purposes.  The article also alludes to government involvement; there are all kinds of conspiracies out there that implicate the US Government as having interests in Facebook also, but there is no solid evidence to support that… only hearsay and conjecture.  There’s little doubt that the government is using Facebook to collect information, but it’s a whole different ballgame if they are actually funding and/or in partnerships with Facebook… one that I’m not ready to accept until I have solid evidence.  

I’m not wholly against data mining… I am a sociologist after all, I cannot deny that I would not be able to do the work that I love so much with people’s data.  But I like to think that the academic cause could still be noble and use the information to try and actually help people rather than try to sell them more crap; which appears to be Facebook’s motivation.  They say that one of the ways they use the data is to give it to third parties is

“for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or movie and personalizing advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you Facebook. We believe this benefits you. You can know more about the world around you and, where there are advertisements, they’re more likely to be interesting to you. For example, if you put a favorite movie in your profile, we might serve you an advertisement highlighting a screening of a similar one in your town. But we don’t tell the movie company who you are.”

Honestly, I would LOVE to get my hands on the kind of data that Facebook collects… to be one of those third parties… anyone who is interested in such things would.  But I know that this data would cost a high price to access.  The kinds of things I want to find out about Facebook are not necessarily related to lists of favorite books, movies and whatnot. 

Cosmically enough though, this comes on the heels of another recent experience with the Facebook Privacy Policy; Four days ago I received a warning on my own Facebook account about advertising/spam.  So I emailed customer service and asked them to tell me which of my posts it was violating the terms of service.  Apparently, placing a link to an off-site survey of my own creation is not allowed.  It is deemed solicitation.  Although my customer service helper couldn’t tell me exactly what post and where it was… I think it was removed from the wall of the “Advocates of Internet Democracy” group.  Is that what they call irony?

Anyhow I sent an email back which in part said:

I have read your terms of service thoroughly and understand that unsanctioned advertising/spam is not allowed… to which I am grateful because who wants that?  I guess I just don’t understand what Facebook deems to be advertising/spam.I have posted a link to an anonymous voluntary survey I that am conducting for non-commercial research purposes… I am a sociologist whose interested in the social networking capabilities of sites such as Facebook.  My Facebook profile is primarily for personal use, however I find that I cannot help myself in occaisionally asking some of my fellow Facebookers what they think about the site and how they use it to form meaningful relationships with their friends and family.

So I guess what I need to know is: are there channels I can go through to perform legimate surveying for the purposes of social research and knowledge generation. 

The email I got back was simply:

“Please refrain from using our site to collect data for your personal purposes. If you would like to learn more about our site, you can email research@facebook.com.”

So I emailed the Facebook research email asking them what was their official policy on either sharing data or allowing Facebook to be used for academic purposes.  That was two nights ago… I haven’t heard back yet.  But I am very curious as to what they are going to say. 

I suspect that if I had conducted the survey on Facebook, instead of placing an offsite link to it, there would be no problem because than my research would become proprietary information of Facebook.  Read the terms of service, although they say that the “user” retains ownership of the user-created content they also state:

“By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.” 

If Facebook bans social research it could be bad news… bad news indeed.  But they would be perfectly within their legal right to do so.  As Dave pointed out… every individual website that makes up the Internet is a piece of virtual property.  But what puzzles me is how the heck do you own something like a website?  What do you own… the design, the style, the font colour coordination, the words and ideas that you are putting on display to share with the world anyway?  How much would you charge for your best idea? In the Facebook case, if I was to request interaction and participation in research about Facebook on Facebook, but didn’t use the specific data that Facebook collects and aggregates, am I violating the terms of service?  Because, technically, I’m not using data directly from Facebook, but I am asking people who use Facebook about how they use it.  Can they have direct claims to user behaviour… that is, the interaction that occurs because of Facebook and the spaces between the actual “data”?   Apparently so… again, referring to the Privacy Policy: 

“When you use Facebook, you may form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, and transmit information through various channels. We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features.”

Facebook is proprietary… I’m not arguing with that.  The software is proprietary, and I would never expect to be given the rights to research the physical networks that make Facebook operate.  But are the informal networks and social relations proprietary as well?  Is the Facebook “space” such a private space that one can’t even query users about their use?  According to the terms of service, the user “owns” the content they put up, so shouldn’t it be the user who gets to control and determine how that content is used.  I mean if I was to get voluntary permission from a particular Facebook user to research how they used the service, is that violating the terms and service and/or privacy policy?  

I think the thing that Facebook doesn’t really acknowledge is that there are actual people at the end of the “data”.  People aren’t on there to provide Accel with proprietary data; people are on there for a myriad of other reasons.  They say that Facebook is for personal use… but they define what personal use means.  Shouldn’t the user have the right to share their information and their own personal networks with whoever they want to?

So what are people’s thoughts, comments on this?  I’m particularly interested in what other Internet researchers think.  Is Facebook and other social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster, off limits for social research?  And if so, should they be?