As you might have expected, I do have some comments on the Facebook hearings in Washington DC.
It was clear that our Senators and Congress representatives were completely out of touch with technology. From the types of questions that they asked, it was crystal clear that they had no idea what they were doing. If that is the case, how can we expect them to do the right thing when it comes to passing laws. They focused on what Facebook was "doing" and they felt that Facebook was responsible. They had all kinds of example of people who were not satisfied with what Facebook was "doing". Is this how you heard the hearings? Here is my problem with the hearings.
Someone did ask Facebook how they made a profit if they did not charge users? Seemed like they were getting into the important area, but they then dropped the ball. It should have been clear that Facebook was making money by selling information contained in the posting that their users made. If they had focused on this point, it would have been clear that the valuable part of their business was the "personal data" contained in their files about their users. If that is where the value is, then how does Facebook turn that into "cash"? That should have been the focus. The ysell the "data", either directly or indirectly after it is mined and organized.
The area that I feel was the most important that was not covered was "what" they could do with the data. The fact that Facebook had not done something "bad" with the data did not satisfy me. It is like Facebook had a gun pointed to someone's head, but were responsible and did not pull the trigger. For me, I feel the government's job is to make sure that Facebook did not have a gun in the first place. If they could not come up with a way to do that, they should focus on laws and penalties if something "bad" was done with that data. We allow people to own guns, but we have clear laws and penalties if those guns are used in some "bad" way. In the hearings, it appeared to me that our representatives were willing to "trust" Facebook not to do anything "bad" with the data that they had.
What I would have done was ask a series of questions about what Facebook "could do" with this or that data? Could they produce a list of people who own more than 100 guns from the data that they have. The answer would be clearly "yes". Could they mine the data and come up with Islamists who favored Sharia Law. If they had focused on how dangerous it is for all of us to have this much personal data on a private computer system that could be hacked or sold. We know that everything has a price!
Users should be able to cancel 100% of the data that they have posted and still continue to use the system. If they do cancel their data and it shows up some place later, there should be a penalty and the government should prosecute Facebook rather than making the user hire their own lawyer. That is why we need law and nsot promises.
Remember that Clinton had her own data in her own computer system and that it was open to possible hacking. We know that Facebook's personal data is also hackable. Did they ask about how sure that Facebook is that the personal data is protected? No! The only solution that I would trust is that there should not be a big personal data base on the "cloud" in the first place. I am worried about the data that the IRS has. How about you?
Remember that Clinton had her own data in her own computer system and that it was open to possible hacking. We know that Facebook's personal data is also hackable. Did they ask about how sure that Facebook is that the personal data is protected? No! The only solution that I would trust is that there should not be a big personal data base on the "cloud" in the first place. I am worried about the data that the IRS has. How about you?
