June 18, 2012 - A Day We'll Remember

It was this day, 06-18-2012, that the sale of face.com to Facebook was confirmed by both parties.

The price: an estimated 100 Million Dollars.

The cost: To be determined. But it may prove to be the biggest deal ever that might well be remembered for sealing privacy as a quaint notion - and kills it forever.

Within a few years you'll be able to snap a picture of someone and upload it and facial recognition algorithms will spin into action and return you a complete profile. Of course, it will all be fancied up and served up to us as "social media progress" and something that's really special and wonderful.

The Surveillance Society is not just any government, or any collection of governments, but big companies like Google, Facebook, etc. that will entrap us as mere cogs in the machine.

Here's a link to the sale information:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/18/fa...-100m-to-bolster-its-facial-recognition-tech/

Remember this date.

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Thankfully when I signed up on Facebook a few years ago and made my "wall" it didn't take me long to realize how stupid it is and I backed out.

 

Facebook have actually been doing facial recognition for over 12 months, something that the author of the TechCrunch article doesn't seem to be aware of:

What I hadn't realised is that Facebook apparently already used technology from Face.com and that this acquisition merely makes the relationship more cozy

 

Very true. To me, the real crime is that they will not allow a Facebook user to turn off the facial recognition. No Facebook - ever - for me.

 

Perhaps, but I did find this in my privacy settings.

Options are Friends, No One; mine is set to No One.

 

Even Facebook admits users cannot turn off facial recognition - but only adjust preferences for the tagging. Facebook still is utilizing facial recognition with the photos (and tags given to those) and all you can do is decide who does, or does not, see the tags.

 

lol, what's the big deal. This is like saying that the identity document "kills" privacy.

 

Consider this. Let's say that I'm in Amsterdam, checking out the red light district. And let's say that I enter one of the little shops, to interview one of the women. But unbeknownst to me, some fellow tourist photographs the conversation, and puts it on his Facebook page, along with some slanderous comments about that drunken Russian jerk who got in his way. And now Facebook tags me in that photo. Oops

 

Disable tagging and you're done. lol

 

What if I don't have a Facebook page? It's my first wife who's collecting dirt on me. She hates my guts. Would I need to create a Facebook account in order to disable tagging? And even if I did that, couldn't she just create a tag named "mirimir (that drunken jerk)" and link it to my page?

 

While I think that's possible, it would probably be against Facebook's TOS, and you could request them to remove it.

 

Signing up for Facebook before age 13 is also against their TOS.....it's estimated that under 13's run into the millions.

It''s not just about what others can see - or not see. It's about Facebook having the information and being able to develop into the biggest data mining and data collection organization in the world.

The younger generation is incredibly cavalier about their private information. Times change. But for some of us.....wow.

 

They only have info that people give them. They are not invading houses and taking photos of people, are they?

 

No, they are not. But they have created a system that enables users to easily spy on and gossip about each other. Given the UK's standard for libel, I'm rather surprised that there haven't already been claims against them. Maybe there have been, and they're sealed