What Facebook’s Open Graph Means To You
23 Apr
Facebook wants to become the central hub of the Internet. In more definitive terms, it wants to become the river, and all websites will become its tributaries. This potentially can expose users to privacy issues in the future. There are a lot of proponents and skeptics out there. This may be a huge turning point for the web to globalize the socialize. This is extremely innovative on Facebook’s part.
Here’s a great little podcast explaining what Facebooks Open Graph means to you: Future Tense Podcast.
Currently, you are relatively anonymous when viewing websites. It takes a court order to link your name to your IP. Your IP follows you wherever you go and a website owner can track you down to your region where your ISP is located. That’s why you get ads that target the city or county you live in. However, they do not know your name or your behavioral preferences. Facebook Open Graph could possibly place advertisers one step closer to your privacy bubble.
Your “Like This” choices will follow you across the net and be used in an algorithm to control what content you are served as well as what content your friends see at initial visit. This is reality today. As of now, the only way you can be tracked on the net is if you leave a comment on a site, and that is if you use your real name. Facebook wants you to use your “identity” when surfing the interwebs. This word “identity” scares me a bit because of the implications of privacy.
A lot of publishers are diving full force into Open Graph because Facebook has a 400 million user audience. This means if you are concerned about your privacy, you should be mindful about the implications of viewing a site integrated into Facebook. Do your research, and find out if you’re OK with the new changes at Facebook. I encourage everyone to drill down and check every privacy option on Facebook. After all, it is your “identity” you’re putting out there.
