By conservative estimates, Facebook users voluntarily share some500 million pieces of content each day. That includes trading weblinks, news stories, blog posts, etc., but not your photos, emailsor snarky wall postings, which would more than double that figure.
Toss into the mix the required registration information for 500million Facebook users, which is also shared. Registering entailsanswering a few seemingly innocuous questions that quickly becomethe public spine of your Facebook pages, the beacon from whichothers will find you and how you will find others.
Everyone knows how this works. You cannot be a blank page atFacebook. Personal information is required for the network,otherwise there is no there there.
Add up this information and content sharing on a daily basis, andthe amount of freely offered personal information and insight equalsbillions of pieces of data, requiring a cosmic calculator tocomplete any further addition.
Collectively, the information available on Facebook is amarketer's dream, all stored neatly and somewhat publicly at onewebsite. Users are well aware of this, but it doesn't deter thegrowth and acceptance of Facebook.
Outside this social network and others like it, though, onlineprivacy expectations revert to the traditional mode, as if sharingpersonal information can be compartmentalized in our digital space.
Nowhere do privacy concerns ring more hollow than on Facebook,where the world's most visited website is produced by the personalinformation users willingly give up.
Most Americans take exception to the idea they can be trackedonline or on their chip-laden smartphones.
We get riled up about the thought of anyone peeking over ourdigital shoulders, as if the FBI walked into our house and looked atour checkbook, credit card receipts and phone records.
Maybe it never struck you as such, but the Internet has evolvedinto an advertising network that depends on personal information forit to work for everyone.
Before all of us hopped on, the Internet was used by professorsand scientists passing around academic and scientific material thatyou and advertisers didn't care much about. Plus, it was closed offto the public anyway.
Today's World Wide Web has become a public platform for precise,target advertising. But don't be afraid.
With the cookie crumbs of information Web users leave behind,online advertising has taken much of the guesswork out of marketing.
Wouldn't you rather see banners ads for products and servicesdesigned with you in mind rather than ones meant for the oppositesex or for someone on the other side of the country?
Advertising is part of the American consumer-driven economy. Evenmore so online, where personalization offers tangible benefits. Thisis a positive technological advancement, similar to Facebookbreaking ground on the social network front.
Let's not pretend there is a way to truly guard all of ourpersonal information and privacy online when at the same time we sofreely give all that up. Instead, embrace this digital give-and-take and let the buyer beware.
Drew Voros is the business editor. Contact him atavoros@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/bizeditor.
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