Boyd Calls Out Google and Facebook for Abusing Users' Privacy

Researcher Danah Boyd brought fighting words to SXSW, where she delivered a well-received keynote Saturday on the interplay between private and public information online. She called out Google and Facebook for being cavalier with their users' personal information by repurposing that which users intended for a smaller audience, implementing opt-out services that are public by default and changing settings without adequately informing users.

Boyd, who works with Microsoft Research and Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, based much of her assessments on interviews with social media users, many of them teens. She took the stance that "Just because something is publicly accessible doesn't mean people want to be publicized." Probably the most radical accusation she levied against technology companies was to declare that "Making something more public that is public is a violation of privacy." By "making more public," she meant aggregating users' updates and making them searchable, as well as repurposing users' information in a way they didn't originally intend.