Social Network Site Privacy - A comparative analysis of six sites

Author

Jennifer Barrigar

Organization

Office of The Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Published

2009

Summary

This paper is intended to provide a comparative privacy analysis of social
network privacy in Canada. It attempts to do so first by identifying six
(6) social network sites currently popular and available in Canada. Each
of these sites is examined individually, looking at the stated mandate,
the financial underpinnings (where available), its history and the user
demographics.
Privacy is, of course, an incredibly broad concept. In order to limit what
could otherwise have been a virtually limitless analysis, the paper sets
out ten (10) categories of activity common to social network sites,
and proceeds to canvas the policy choices of each of the selected sites
for each category. While this will not, of course, cover all the privacy
implications endemic to each site, it does provide a platform for
understanding privacy issues and the policy choices sites have made
regarding those particular issues across the board.
Recognizing the seeming dissonance between the expressed desire
for privacy and the lack of user uptake of existing privacy tools, the
paper attempts to bridge that gap. Drawing on the theory of privacy
as contextual integrity, the project seeks to find ways both to facilitate
deeper user understanding of the context in which they operate on a
social network site as well as ways to make privacy controls and tools
meaningful for users and more effective in allowing users to make the
privacy choices that matter to them.
This analysis indicates that in order to further privacy on SNS, it will be
necessary to provide users with the appropriate tools to allow them to
understand the context in which their information exists and to enable
them to select appropriate levels of information sharing and enact
appropriate protections upon their personal information to enforce those
self-determined levels and accordingly produce a SNS privacy that is
meaningful and intuitive for users.
Building upon this user-centered understanding of privacy, then, the
paper concludes by providing a comparative analysis of the sites under
each of the selected categories and putting forward recommendations to
facilitate the desired user comprehension and privacy control and by so
doing create opportunities for improved privacy protection.

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Source: Consumer Policy Research Database