People are getting a little bent out of shape around the idea of being “outed” on Facebook as a result of the “new” web-based Profiles.
Now, I’ll say up-front that I don’t like Facebook. I don’t like Zuckerberg’s attitude that amounts to people wanting a degree of privacy around their private lives are somehow “less trustworthy” than those who put the entire mundanity of their lives online (or more pointedly, on Facebook).
BUT.. that said, this whole thing is coming over as something of a storm in a teacup in many respects. The issue in question is that an SL user who has a Facebook account went to his SL web profile and clicked the Facebook LIKE button and – quelle surprise – it linked his SL web Profile to his Facebook account. Ummm… well, what else did he expect?
Whether or not he was signed-in to Facebook at the time is irrelevant – and it is certainly not a reason to go screaming about the “wrongness” of the Profiles. Let’s face it – these buttons crop up everywhere; they are there for Facebook users to record things and places they like. Cookies are used so that information can be collected, recorded and displayed without the need for people to constantly log in and out of Facebook in order to do so.
As such, the user got precisely what he indicated he wanted: his SL Profile linked to his Facebook account and RL identity. No one outed him but himself. As Darren Caldwell points out in the thread:
This is because You clicked “like” on your own Profile. 
Only You can link your SL profile to your FB profile. Other people clicking “Like” on your profile will not link the two.
And even then – he really didn’t “out” himself at all.
All he actually did was create a link between his avatar’s Profile and his real life identity on Facebook. Unless both contain information that specifically links one to the other, anyone else looking at his Facebook page will simply see that he happens to “Like” someone called “Perrie Juran” who is a Second Life user.
To claim that LL, in including these buttons, are putting people’s privacy and anonymity at risk smacks a little of histrionics. Certainly, it’s not a reason for people to decry the new Profile system.
That said, I would have preferred it if the Facebook and Twitter buttons were something that we could opt-in to and display on our Profiles, rather than being presented as a fait accompli. This latter point is apparently now being addressed according to comment from Fredrik Linden in a comment on JIRA WEB3494 – although I have yet to see any sign of an ability to remove the two buttons in question on my Profile. In the same JIRA, Yoz Linden has indicated the 1st Life tab is not longer displayed on the web Profiles – which is a good move – and hinted that it may not be back out of respect for people’s privacy.
A lot of finger-pointing is going on here, but at the end of the day, this is something of a two-way street. While Linden Lab may be acting somewhat precipitously in providing these buttons, equally those opting to use, say both SL and Facebook – as with the user generating the above thread – really should take responsibility for their own actions, both in using the tools and, frankly, in what they put in their Profile.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Yes and no, Facebook does try to get you to stay logged in, its Facebook itself that’s the issue, rather than the web profiles, but those “like” buttons are pretty damn sneaky.
The issue is more the normalising of it being ok to datamine the way Facebook does, it’s not ok and we shouldn’t be told this sort of function creep is ok.
That being said, people really should familiarise themselves with these issues, especially Facebook users, there’s no point crying over spilt milk.
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What data-mining?
Providing people refrain from putting genuine / detailed RL information in their SL Profile, there is nothing to be mined that will impact them. LL have already in part responded to concerns by removing the more objectionable elements from public view (e.g. the 1st Life tab, where people tend to drop more personal information about themselves, is no longer displayed).
Facebook is an issue in its own right, to be sure – and yes, people should familiarise themselves with the environment before leaping in (hence why I don’t touch it with a ten foot barge pole). But to accuse LL of being complicit in some big Facebookisation move is, I think, reaching a little.
It’s a crass attempt to gain visibility within Facebook, to be sure – and one I don’t think will ultimately work (other than when people link to their OWN Profile – and hopefully they *will* have the common sense to understand what they are doing should they opt to do so). Certainly I can’t see dozens of Facebook users trawling through SL Profiles and casually linking to “imaginary people” left, right and centre.
Given that there are those people within SL who *do* appreciate being able to make such links as much as anyone who hates the idea, I’d respectfully suggest that the *most* most that needs to be done is to make the “share” buttons *fully* opt-in, rather than partially opt-out. This way *both* sides of the debate get to do as they wish.
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The Facebook like button doesn’t require you to be a Facebook user to collect information about you, this concern was raised not long after it was released, it also doesn’t require you to click it.
This is the sort of normalisation of data collection that is going on, oh Facebook aren’t the only people doing this, websites regularly log IP addresses and such like, but Facebook’s game is data.
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As is Google, every time you access their search page or fire-up Chrome. Again, it’s not just IP logging – as the focused nature of ads appearing in Search results *and* on ad-support website will show. BUT… the search pages and Chrome *are* Google’s products, which to a degree makes their activities somewhat different – I’m activity using their tools, so I’m in a position of (to slightly misuse the phrase) caveat emptor.
When it comes to what you’re suggesting – that Facebook are leveraging a third party website for their own nefarious ends, I have a few problems in accepting what is being said.
Certainly if Linden Lab are passively allowing Facebook to gather information on anyone simply viewing the web Profiles – which is how I understand what you are saying – then we all might as well give up browsing the web entirely, because by that standard, *any* website, however iinnocuous appearing, could be used to do the same – and doesn’t even need a Facebook (or whomever) icon or button sitting on it *at all*. This includes both your blog and mine….
…And with respect, isn’t this where paranoia begins? Reds Under the Beds and all that? Seeing Facebook lurking behind every logo, every other word, simply because they they don’t “even require you to click” what may (or may not be) there…?
Granted concerns were raised…but were they supported by hard evidence? Did someone find that simply opening-up an SL web Profile left a trail of Facebook cookie crumbs all over their computer? I peruse a lot of blogs, and I’ve yet to see any shock / horror headlines than go beyond speculation. But I also admit I’m completely fallible and could just as easily have missed something – in which case, enlightenment would be appreciated.
Here is where I hit a dichotomy: I am *not* a technical expert, so on the one hand, I have to take the charges you make totally at face value. I also despise Facebook for the way it treats its own users and the duality displayed by Mark Zuckerberg in matters relating to privacy.
BUT – for all the talk of Facebook gathering data about me simply by me having visited a web page with a Facebook icon or button on it hasn’t lead to Facebook directly impinging on my life, digital or real. Not from what I can observe anyway. Yes, it is insidious and unpleasant when you get down to it – but it doesn’t seem to be hurting me at all. It’s not impacting the way I live and shop, the work I do, the people I associate with professionally and as friends, and so on. Thus, I find myself somewhat sanguine about this “threat” and – perhaps naively – view the idea that Facebook are coercing other websites to allow them to gather data on me *just* because they have an icon or button on a web page (whether I click on it or not) as possibly being somewhat alarmist.
But… (oh for a third hand!) …perhaps that’s precisely how they *want* me to think and behave – and *whoops* we’re back to skating on the edge of paranoia. Or reality.
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