Let down by changes to social networking sites

Two of my closest online friends have disappointed me. Privacy hiccups by both Facebook and Google have recently brought collisions in work and social worlds.

In the Facebook case, I was teaching my dad how to use the social network. He wanted to practice uploading photos, so we tested adding family pictures to his account. Because his Facebook account had to be kept strictly for business use, we adapted the settings so only he would be able to see the photos. I reassured him it was secure by logging into my account and viewing his profile. See, I said, “the photo can’t be seen by anyone except you.”

A couple of weeks later, my editor asked me to cover the launch of a new photos dashboard Facebook had added to its homepage, which allows users to browse recent photos of all their friends from one page. To my dismay, the photo my dad did not want anyone to see was included in my dashboard feed.

I called Facebook and a member of its press team told me such errors had occurred when trialling the dashboard but should have been resolved by the time the development went public. A few weeks later, it appears fixed.

Google and my much depended-on Gmail account is the other site that lost my trust. As all Gmail users found when Google launched its new social network Buzz, the service had been automatically tied to their email accounts.

Buzz allows Gmail users to share real-time updates with their email contacts in a similar way to Twitter. However, unlike Twitter, Google pre-selected Gmail accounts its users would follow based on their most frequent contacts, and made all this information public.

My work and social worlds were merged and my boss could now know I talk to my boyfriend on Gmail more than I do some of my colleagues. Google has since fixed the problem and will now just suggest accounts Buzz users should follow.

Such stories are reminders to not rely on privacy settings offered by social networks and to not do things online you do not want people to see.