Social Networking and Privacy Perception : A User Study of Facebook & LinkedIn

This thesis examines a very focused concept of how privacy is perceived on social networking sites. It starts the way people perceive privacy and the way they define it. Secondly this thesis explores the idea and utility of social networking sites, what draws people to them and how they use it primarily and a brief history of their evolution in the last few years. Further this thesis studies current privacy threats and issues, and the prevailing Internet Privacy Laws focusing on USA and Europe. To elaborate the issues two case studies have been undertaken of namely Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com, the two most popular social networking sites as on date. These case studies explore some of the main and also some controversial features of both these sites and critically analyze their privacy practices and the measures adopted by them to enhance privacy requirements. This thesis observes in detail the features that support as well as the ones that do not support privacy requirements of users, thereby leaving them exposed to invasion of their privacy and personal information to external elements. This is specifically a case with Facebook. At the same time Facebook is constantly addressing these privacy issues to the extent it is felt or voiced by its users. LinkedIn on the other hand is addressing privacy issues with more clarity and therefore stands more credible in terms of user privacy and concerns. To substantiate the study of the mentioned social networking sites this thesis includes a research based on survey and interview. The research specifically throws light on privacy perception on social networking sites, which is found very vague and negative especially in case of Facebook. Certain features central to user privacy are loosely bound or tough to get through in Facebook or maybe lack of clarity among users makes Facebook perceived to be low on privacy and security concerns. The research survey emphasizes that social networking sites with their growing user base and clout may lose out on security and privacy concerns if they don’t take up well publicized user friendly measures and provide users with a hassle free experience. A large number of users do not have a feel about the way social networking sites function, the way privacy and security policies are framed, how much of personal information is or can be shared and who can access it other than themselves and what potential threats they are exposed to. This thesis explores in detail the mentioned issues and provides suggestions which may help both the parties in addressing concerns and issues regarding online privacy