MySpace selling Confidential User Data
by: Bradley Wint on March 17th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
If you thought Facebook’s new privacy act “breached” users’ privacy, you may want to take a look at MySpace. It is reported that MySpace has started selling user data to a wide variety of 3rd party agencies including academic foundations and marketing firms. Most of the data includes photos, blog posts and status updates. As scary as it sound, MySpace actually has the right to sell the data. It is stated clearly in the user agreement, which is displayed upon registration, that members basically give up their rights to their uploaded information in order to “pay ” for the service. They are not the only ones with such clauses in their agreements. Other sites like Facebook, Bebo and Tagged also have similar terms, however they have not done anything too concerning…yet!
From a personal stand point, MySpace definitely made the mistake to sell such key data. With Facebook quickly consuming their market share, MySpace has fallen from the 7th top site on the net to around 16th place according to Alexa. Even with such a right, they are basically ruining what their site was built on…privacy. The real question is how damaging will this move be? Will users complain but comply later on or will they boycott MySpace completely and move to another social networking site such as Facebook? Comments are welcomed.
Via: PCWorld
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