Facebook Privacy Chain Letter Hoax Resurfaces - Users Remain Uninformed

Several Facebook users are still completely unaware that the infamous copyright chain letter status is just as effective a method to protecting their privacy as their statuses about the weather outside.  The letter has recently resurfaced, according to an article in The Washington Post, once again giving thousands of users the false hope of having their own copyrights to personal information.

This event makes apparent that there are now bigger issues at hand than just that of companies collecting private data:  the extremely limited knowledge of "social-networkers" on their digital rights, and the fact that they are not taking advantage of legitimate opportunities to increase control over their content (such as Facebook's past policy-voting polls that only few users took part in, or simply reading the site policies in general), but are Facebook users the ones fully responsible here?

The popularity of such privacy hoaxes indicates that several Facebook users do value their privacy; however, are they willing to protect that privacy by thoroughly reading the privacy policy and conditions statements?  The popularity of the fake chain letter suggests altogether that there is an excessive amount of Facebook users that do not thoroughly read (if at all) these statements.  One could make the argument that it is the fault on users' parts for letting their personal information be collected.  After all, even after Facebook offered voting polls on policy changes in the past, only a minimal amount of users took the opportunity.

But what exactly is Facebook doing to encourage users to read such conditions?

Facebook has three links:

• privacy
• cookies
• terms

each covering a different aspect on the company's conditions on user information.  Each link directs users to a new page, with even more subcategories detailing many more aspects within each division.  Finally, after a subcategory has been clicked on, a lengthy page with several paragraphs is presented.

It isn't hard to understand why the average social networking individual would rather simply check "Yes, I agree to the above terms and statements," instead of scrutinizing the massive amount of policy information that is offered to them.  After all, they came to Facebook to socialize, not read page after page of an agreement contract.

Then remain those that do put in the effort to read all of the policies.  But how much of what the company is saying does the average user actually understand?  In their Information We Receive About You page (under their privacy link), about 2 paragraphs before the page ends, the company states that "We store data for as long as it is necessary to provide products and services to you and others."  How long exactly is necessary?  Is it necessary? Do "products and services" refer to advertisements on Facebook, or do they refer to physical Facebook updates?  This statement (along with several others on their policy pages) are actually pretty vague, despite the descriptiveness that one would expect upon the lengthiness of the conditions.

The hoax chain letter was just a seemingly easy way of protecting personal data for many Facebook users, but its massive popularity showed just how little users know about online privacy policies.  This lack of crucial knowledge on the part of the general networking public raises reasonable concern, but also may raise eyebrows towards those that don't take the time to read the policies.

What can (or should) be done on either Facebook's end, the users' end, or both?  Leave thoughts in the comments below.