Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
People are supposed to be social on a social media
website. But choosing to share information is not
the same as having it shared for you. And that
difference is at the center of debate over privacy
on Facebook and other social networks. A free
service that makes money by advertising other sites
has to find the right balance. It has to satisfy
advertisers seeking information to target ads. But
it also has to be careful, or people could start to
worry about an invasion of privacy.Facebook started
as a website for college students to share interests
and information. Today, it is the largest social
media website -- more than four hundred million
users. But lately it has faced a lot of criticism
about its handling of privacy issues. In May, Mark
Zuckerberg, the twenty-six year old chief executive
of Facebook, announced changes. He said: "Today, we
begin rolling out some new controls to make it
easier for you to control what you share on
Facebook." He said controlling personal information
will be simpler than with the existing system of
complex privacy settings. Marc Rotenberg is
president of the Electronic Privacy Information
Center. He told "The Early Show" on CBS television
that the changes may not be enough. He said he
thinks there are a large number of users who have
decided they really cannot trust Facebook anymore.
Facebook is based in Palo Alto, California. The
privately held company does not have to report
earnings. But its revenue last year has been
estimated at five hundred to six hundred fifty
million dollars. This was mainly from selling ads
aimed at users based on what they post on Facebook.
Facebook is not alone in being criticized over
privacy. Google, the world leader in Web search, is
in trouble for collecting information from unsecured
wireless networks. This was done as specially
equipped vehicles took pictures for the Google
mapping feature called Street View. Google said it
never meant to collect people's private information,
like e-mails and passwords. But officials in
Hamburg, Germany, have launched a criminal
investigation. And two American congressmen asked
the Federal Trade Commission to see if Google broke
any laws in the United States. And that's the VOA
Special English Economics Report. What do you think
about privacy online? You can post comments at
voaspecialenglish.com or on our Facebook page at VOA
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
