Reading Quiz 8 Solutions

Q1. Facebook makes money through ads.  If Facebook could predict when
one of its users gets pregnant, companies like Target or Wal Mart would
likely pay Facebook a lot of money to be able to target ads to those
consumers. Those companies want to know who these users are because if
the companies can hook the users when they are shopping for their future
children, the users are likely to be customers for a long time.

Facebook users may not want others to know that they are pregnant.
For example, a targeted ad might tell someone else that uses that computer
(i.e. the user's partner or family member) that one of the users of the
computer is pregnant.  A user might not want their web browser to reveal
this information.

Q2. If people are busy and distracted, they are likely to overlook
privacy issues.  For example, people that want to use Instagram to share
pictures with their friends are likely to quickly sign-up and ignore any
privacy terms and conditions (i.e just check the box).  Or they may not
take the time to change their privacy settings to make their pictures
or profiles only visible to friends once they have signed up.

Another example: On Facebook, users now have the ability to share posts
and pictures to only certain groups of people, i.e. close friends.
If someone is distracted or busy or multi-tasking on the Internet,
the person may overlook this option and share things publicly or more
widely that he or she actually wants.

The Alessandro Acquisti study "Sleights of Privacy" referred to in the
NY Times reading "Letting Down Our Guard With Web Privacy" by Somini
Sengupta is the relevant one here.

Q3.  Thank you for the feedback.