ResourceBlog Article: Canada: Social Network Site Privacy: A Comparative Analysis of Six Sites

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Monday, 5th October 2009

Canada: Social Network Site Privacy: A Comparative Analysis of Six Sites

Social Network Site Privacy: A comparative analysis of six sites (PDF; 1.8 MB)
We believe this report will be of interest to those both inside and outside of Canada. The six sites analyzed are:

+ Facebook
+ Hi5
+ Linkedin
+ LiveJournal
+ MySpace
+ SkyRock

This paper is intended to provide a comparative privacy analysis of social network privacy in Canada. It attempts to do so first by identifying six (6) social network sites currently popular and available in Canada. Each of these sites is examined individually, looking at the stated mandate, the financial underpinnings (where available), its history and the user demographics.

Privacy is, of course, an incredibly broad concept. In order to limit what could otherwise have been a virtually limitless analysis, the paper sets out ten (10) categories of activity common to social network sites, and proceeds to canvas the policy choices of each of the selected sites for each category. While this will not, of course, cover all the privacy implications endemic to each site, it does provide a platform for understanding privacy issues and the policy choices sites have made regarding those particular issues across the board.

Recognizing the seeming dissonance between the expressed desire for privacy and the lack of user uptake of existing privacy tools, the paper attempts to bridge that gap. Drawing on the theory of privacy as contextual integrity, the project seeks to find ways both to facilitate deeper user understanding of the context in which they operate on a social network site as well as ways to make privacy controls and tools meaningful for users and more effective in allowing users to make the privacy choices that matter to them.

This analysis indicates that in order to further privacy on SNS, it will be necessary to provide users with the appropriate tools to allow them to understand the context in which their information exists and to enable them to select appropriate levels of information sharing and enact appropriate protections upon their personal information to enforce those self-determined levels and accordingly produce a SNS privacy that is meaningful and intuitive for users.

Building upon this user-centered understanding of privacy, then, the paper concludes by providing a comparative analysis of the sites under each of the selected categories and putting forward recommendations to facilitate the desired user comprehension and privacy control and by so doing create opportunities for improved privacy protection.

Source: Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

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