FaceBook: Giving Personal Info for Profit?

Facebook, the Internet social networking site, has decided to allow companies to create personalized ads for account holders (which number more than 50 million active users) with their friends' profile pictures attached. Professor Ken Birman, computer science, and a member of the Team for Research in Ubiquitous Secure Technology (TRUST) thinks that Facebook's announcement is another step on an already slippery slope toward a lack of social privacy.

Professor Birman said "I worry that we're gradually creating the world of Minority Report", referring to the futuristic sci-fi film where passersby are tracked as they move and are assailed with personalized advertising projected on walls. "We're witnessing a massive erosion of privacy, and society as a whole seems to be accepting this trend without even questioning it."

For the complete article see the Nov. 14th issue of the Cornell Daily Sun