Facebook Founder Fazed at All Things D
MarketWatch, a website run by the Wall Street Journal, reports on an interview of Mark Zuckerberg at the All Things D Conference. I’ve not heard of the All Things D Conference, but I know that, if the Wall Street Journal is covering it in any way, it must have been full of movers and shakers moving and shaking.
Mr. Zuckerberg did more shaking than moving. From the story:
The interview was rich in irony. For the CEO of a company that wants everyone to share information, Zuckerberg clearly did not like talking about himself in front of some of the tech industry’s biggest movers and shakers. Just like a teenager who posts something silly on Facebook that he or she will regret later, Zuckerberg did not like being reminded of what may have been some of his less-than-finer moments.
(The whole thing is worth the five minutes it takes to read, if only to savor the irony.)
If you use the internet, you inherently give up some of your privacy.
If you drive down the street with a license plate on the back of your car, you also give up some of your privacy; not as many persons are watching, but the principle is the same.
At my TWUUG meeting tonight, one of the members told a story about how, 10 years ago, he was offended by someone on line. He was able to track down the offender’s ISP, IP address, home address, and telephone number in less than an hour and fire off a complaint to the ISP.
Indeed, about the same time, I had reason to suspect someone of misbehavior and, for a small outlay to one of those outfits that advertise when you look up a phone number at a reverse lookup site, found out more than I wanted to know, including property tax information and real estate plat number, in less than three minutes, simply from a search of legally-available public records, the same ones you could search at a library or a courthouse.
One can argue though, and I think it’s a valid argument, that being subject to being tracked down is not the same as having a third party broadcast your data, including private data (not the kind you would find in a courthouse or library) to anyone willing to pay for it.
Apparently, “the default is social” is for everyone else, but not for Mr. Zuckerberg.