The 2 sides of facebook (and other social networks):
Facebook, MySpace caught releasing user data
In a seemingly never-ending string of damaging disclosures about its users' privacy concerns, Facebook has reportedly been releasing user data to ad companies that hadn't even asked for the info.
Facebook isn't alone this time: rival social-media site MySpace has also been called out in Friday's Wall Street Journal report by Emily Steel and Jessica E. Vascellaro — together with the content-sharing sites Livejournal and Digg.
The report says that the companies have delivered user data to major online advertising companies such as Google's DoubleClick and Yahoo!'s Right Media, despite explicit pledges to protect such information. The released material includes user names and ID numbers, together with data that could be used to accumulate a host of additional information on individual users, such as where they live, their names, occupations, incomes and places of employment.
Read more at the article.
Virtual life after death
On 20 May 2010 an event known as "Digital Death Day" brought together the businesses of social networking, data management and death care.
(rest of article)
It has been suggested that the existence of this online presence after people die, plus the accessibility of online memorials, could draw out the grieving process.
But this may not be a bad thing, says Mark Dunn, a psychotherapist. He believes most of us in the developed world do not grieve for long enough and that the internet "may allow us to learn the mechanics of grieving again."
I find that last bit very interesting: that we no longer have an easy and understandable grief process, that too often we are told to 'get over it'.
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