Facebook has been recently under fire for changing privacy settings. What started as complaints in a few blogs is starting to reach the big media and several parliament buildings around the globe. Facebook needs user data to make advertisement deals, if those users start mistrusting Facebook the business will be over.
On one side, sharing information has many clear advantages and a lot of money can be done with that. On the other side, there are already good examples on how protecting information or giving users clear control about what they share could be beneficial for users and businesses. As interaction designers we could and should improve those experiences.
A Venetian mask, symbol of privacy.
Anonymity and privacy also means freedom. On the contrary, being forced to be 100% public might, in many cases, prevent people to create new things and to share what they really think. There are many things one should not say in public; consequences could be hard if those messages have to be attached by default to the speakers real name. The magic of message boards and chats on the internet beginnings was their anonymity, without that many topics would have never been discussed in a truly sincere way.
It is clear that one benefits from others´ information. Is it possible to share information, keep the user secure and make money with it? Yes, it is; I have two good examples.
Genius, the Apple iTunes recommendation service, is getting tons of information from users, like favorite artists, most listened songs, playlists, movies and TV shows. In order to convince people to share all that, Genius proposes sharing in an anonymous way: no, with Genius you can not see what music your friends are listening. But that´s all right, the best recommendations are done through the analysis of the data coming from thousands of users, not just your friends. Is Apple making money with Genius? I bet they do!
Delicious is another good example of user protection. The public bookmarking service stores users´favorite websites; people allow that because in principle their data is kept private. Delicious reinforces that feeling of privacy through its interface design:
“If you do not want personal information to be displayed for other users to see, do not check any of these boxes”, a setting on Delicious profile creation page. This is a key feature of the Delicious service, without that many people would not share many of their bookmarks, like the ones related to politics or to adult content. Delicious is clearly profiting from sharing and being protecting at the same time.
The future
I predict people will share even more in the future but websites like Facebook will get more pressure to offer better privacy and the design of interfaces and services that offer more intelligent ways of sharing information without compromising privacy will become a big business.
