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Privacy Settings in Online Social Networks as a Conflict of Interests: Regulating User Behavior on Facebook

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Computational Social Networks

Abstract

This chapter shall analyze the options users of online social networks like Facebook have to adjust privacy settings. As the theoretical background of this evaluation, an institutional economics point of view shall be applied. Against this background, the following analysis of how Facebook as a provider of an online social network designs its platform in such a way that their own interests, as many users’ data to keep visible and searchable, are implemented. Both the GUI of the platform (website) and the various possibilities for mobile use, such as special “mobile” versions of the website and smartphone applications (apps) for various platforms, will be evaluated.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Regulation by physical architecture can be found in, for example, urban and transport planning, and in the design of public spaces such as shopping malls and supermarkets (cf., e.g., [3]).

  2. 2.

    One example of the difficulties in regulating globally networked systems became apparent during the political upheavals in Egypt in early 2011. Because the government in power at the time was unable to limit access to the websites being used for communication and coordination among the opposition movement, it decided that its only course of action was to shut off access to the entire Internet.

  3. 3.

    Although I will not go into DRM systems in any further detail, this example shows that technologically supported regulation does not only shape the specific regulatory area but can also have far-reaching effects on other legally protected rights (cf., e.g., [18]).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Commercial Information Technology and Quantitative Methods, Computers & Society, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Max-R. Ulbricht

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  1. Max-R. Ulbricht
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Correspondence to Max-R. Ulbricht .

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  1. Auburn, 98071, USA

    Ajith Abraham

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Ulbricht, MR. (2012). Privacy Settings in Online Social Networks as a Conflict of Interests: Regulating User Behavior on Facebook . In: Abraham, A. (eds) Computational Social Networks. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4051-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4051-1_5

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-4051-1

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