Privacy and internet vs utilitiesFollow

So, Facebook ratted out a pedophile.

Now, don't get me wrong I'm glad they did but this raises some questions.

If I have a phone conversation with someone nobody is allowed to listen in without first obtaining a court order. There are good reasons for this. How is using MSN, Facebook messaging, AIM, ICQ etc any different? The conversation is between two participants so by nature it is not public and neither party is giving consent for said conversation to be shared. This would be the equivalent of your telephone company recording your phone conversation, checking it's contents and, having listened to your conversation and not liking what they heard, passing said information to a 3rd party. This is apparently common practice. How many conversations did the techs at Facebook read before they came across this one? What if you have an indirect relationship of some sort with one of these techs? Say you're their girlfriend's boss..

No, "I" don't, but you can say the same for the phone company, except they don't have ANY privacy agreements, we use their hardware/software to transmit our voice conversations, heck they go through the same wires as your internet traffic.

I always assume people are spying on me.

Privacy is a myth created by children that adults have fallen for.

Just to qualify, I know it doesn't work this way but I'm not the typical computer user.



And why shouldn't the majority think that way? That's the way it should work. All other forms of communication are protected this way. If I have a conversation with someone I think that conversation should be between that person and myself unless one of us chooses to pass that information along in some way. As long as the expectation of privacy is maintained (I'm not yelling to my neighbor through the window with a bullhorn) my conversation should be kept private.

So is Rogers, my phone company.

If this is going to become a breakdown of internet laws vs. telephone laws, I'm out. I just came by to let you know that bellyaching about Facebook not protecting your conversation was quite ridiculous.

I'm Canadian :).

Everyone thinks it is because that's the standard that has been set for other forms of communication by our governments. The same way EULAs aren't enforceable in court Facebooks privacy policy has no real bearing on what's considered protected communications (And yes, I know this is not currently considered protected communications, that's kind of the point).

I'm not arguing that this isn't the way it is or that it's somehow magically illegal because I don't like it. I'm arguing that these forms of communication are no different than a phone call and should therefore fall under the same regulations phone companies fall under. You seem to be trying to prove to me that they're allowed to do this and I shouldn't be surprised. I assure you, I'm not surprised and I'm well aware of what they are allowed to do with my information.

Telus or GTFO.

I'm sorry, but the scope and gravity of your concerns were obscured by your trite and irrational worries.

I kept it but put it in another post. I'm not afraid of thought exercise thought police!

Yeah, using a new random email account in a public place would be a good way. I guess I meant, how could you protect the data itself from being monitored, not just the identity of the sender? And SIPRNet isn't available to the public at large.


Edited, Aug 17th 2012 12:50pm by trickybeck

I think the point is that Facebook isn't really the medium of transmission, it's the end destination. A physical analogy may be working in an office and getting your letters from the mail room delivered pre-opened. The mail is protected by law en route to the building but you'd have a devil of a time trying to get the guys in the mail room arrested for tampering because your expectation of that protection is lost once the letters are delivered to the building as a condition of working at that office. You can ask the boss to change the policy (which may or may not happen) or stop working in that building but you don't really have legal protection.

Likewise, your electronic love letters may be protected as Rogers sends them from Point A to Point B but once they hit the Facebook "building", you lose a lot of protection which you agreed to lose via the EULA as a condition of being in the Facebook "building".

That's a very good point. So transmission mediums are protected but endpoints aren't. So that would clear Facebook and anything other than a strictly P2P solution.