Argumentative Essay – Facebook
Should the German Government strictly regulate Facebook and Google’s use of your information or is their use of your information simply the cost of your user access to their websites?
Construct an argumentative essay to answer this question referencing the two articles you were given on the topic.

This essay will argue that the German Government should strictly regulate the use of information by presenting arguments in favour of this thesis, debilitating a counter argument and referencing the articles “Facebook’s Targeted Ads Expand To The Web” by Vauhini Vara and “Germany’s War with Facebook and Google over Privacy” by Heather Horn.
Facebook and its broad collection of Facebook user’s data rises privacy concerns. When a person registers, they agree with Facebook’s privacy agreement and allow them to use their data for customized ads and other apolitical purposes that are mentioned in the agreement. But also when someone isn’t registered logged in, Facebook tracks which sides this person visits and saves this data to present them with personalized ads – same as Google. Vara states that Facebook uses people’s names and friends to make an ad more believable. Here, there is the possibility to opt out by following a very difficult path through the personal settings. But this only means that the ads won’t be seen anymore. Facebook will still collect personal information and store all that data. It is really hard to get insight in that process and what really happens with the collected data.
Facebook and Google Street View both assume that people consent to their terms and actions and make it consciously hard to decline. The opposition to Google Street View that led to the abandonment of the project’s German branch that is mentioned in Horn’s is an example for a reaction to this assumed consent. When a house owner didn’t want their house on Google Street view, they had to file an extra form during a given period of time to deny Google pictures of their property. This cost a lot of effort and time, the same as changing your privacy settings or any settings concerning data collection and share on Facebook does. It is manipulative of Facebook and Google and seems to have the goal to trick people into “voluntarily” giving up a lot of their personal information.
The huge amount of stored data – which is still growing – and the duration of its storage are potentially dangerous. Horn states in her article that Facebook and Google now collect all this data for reasons that don’t have anything to do with politics and that they are focused on advertisement. But this huge amount of data that is stored for over two years and always added to is also potentially dangerous if stolen. One cannot predict what all this information could be used for, but solely the thought of someone being able to do with one’s personal information as they please is unsettling. And even if it is not stolen, it is hard to say what goes on behind closed curtains or if the policy will change.
These arguments are in favour of strict governmental regulations for the use of personal information by Facebook and Google in order to protect people’s privacy. But on the other hand, one could argue that it is a well-known fact that both companies collect and use personal information for commercial purposes. It is everybody’s own decision to join Facebook and how much to share in its premises. Also, there are options to decline certain features or prohibit the use of some information. But again these options are very hard to find and even harder to achieve.
All in all the dangers of continued and prolonged collection of personal information should be controlled and minimized by governmental regulations. The strictness of these regulations are to be debated under the aspect of being able to make own decisions and minors in the Facebook-World. But in conclusion, privacy regulations controlled by a third party like the government should be obligatory.