Social Media Privacy Case Study

As technology continues to expand, reaching and connecting more people each and every day, social media and society become inseparable. Society as a whole relies on social media to get through the day, from merely checking early morning emails, to video chatting with family across the country. This strong connection between society and social media increases interactions with others near and far, yet, points out the issues of trust, security, and privacy in relation to applications and websites used. Who has control over information posted through social media? Will companies stay true to their terms, conditions, and policy statements, or will they had over personal information to outside sources? Skype, a video and instant messaging application, …show more content…
Two of the twenty third party affiliates named in the Privacy Policy, AdBlade and Xaxis, each publish a privacy and terms of use document, similar to Skype, and outline how the company will share, use, and distribute user’s information. In AdBlade’s General Privacy Policy, for example, the company uses “clickstream data,” which allows the company to track users’ Internet activity. This includes what a person used the site for and how long he or she was on it ("Adblade - Privacy Policy”). Xaxis’ Privacy Policy similarly describes how the company works with users’ information. Stating that Xaxis sees what a person does with not only their clients, but also their client’s clients, the company tracks what a person does before and after he or she comes into contact with Xaxis and distributes this information to multiple companies. However, Xaxis leaves specific information about users private by not collecting users’ names, addresses, and phone numbers, but by merely referring to a person as “you” or “your” ("Privacy Policy | …show more content…
However, unlike the third parties who are granted access through the application itself, Skype claims the government must file a formal request in order to receive information such as credit card numbers, names, and addresses. Anticipating the response of users over giving the government their information, Skype states that the company legally cooperates with the government and police (Timberg and Nakashima). Relating back to privacy issues, users want a sense of security that their information, conversations, and time spent on Skype remain private; however, allowing third party affiliates and the government to easily access this information and activity creates the opposite effect and leaves the user feeling apprehensive about interaction on the application. Additionally, in the peer reviewed academic journal, “Analysis of Information Leakage from Encrypted Skype Conversation,” detailed breakdown of Skype’s encryptions prove that the application is not as secure as it claims to be. Skype claimed to use a secure and protected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which allows companies and users to make voice calls over the Internet; however, detailed testing demonstrated that up to eighty-three percent could be understood (Dupasquier, Burschka, Mclaughlin and Sezer). This information means that people and companies other than Skype and its