5.

10 Privacy Model for “Like” Button on Facebook

Figure 5.3 Privacy Model for Like button on Facebook

In Facebook, we can only hide stuff that we have originally posted. But when we "like"

on a friends’ page, post, photo that friend controls that who is able to view the likes.

Before we like on a post, put the cursor on the privacy of the post. It will then disclose

who can see that post. If it says:

Public (the icon is a globe shape), it means any one in Facebook can see our like on it

that is of course including our friend.

Friends of poster-name, it means only the poster's friend can see our like.
Friends of Friends, it means friends of the poster can see it and friends of friends of the

poster can also see it. Figure 5.4 shows a simple guide to Facebook privacy [7].

Figure 5.4 A simple guide to Facebook Privacy.

Our “Likes” can reveal the sensitive personal information about us. Such personal

information will be known to strangers when we “Like” a post which has the privacy

setting as Public, Friends only or Friends of Friends. As a consequence, Facebook users

expose themselves to different privacy risks [15].

The Facebook user, who “Likes” the post, cannot control who can view his likes. But

this proposed privacy model helps the Facebook user to control who can see his likes.

According to this model, when the Facebook user likes a post, a dialog box appears with

three options (only me, me and sender and default). The user is supposed to select any

one of the options. If the user chooses “Only Me”, his likes can only be seen by himself.

If the user selects “Me and Sender” option, his likes can be viewed by himself and by the

sender. If the “Default” option is chosen by the user, depending upon the privacy setting

of the post, (as mentioned above) it can be viewed by others. So the Facebook user who

“Likes” the post can have a control on who can view his likes. Without his consent his
likes cannot be viewed by others. Thus this model protects the privacy of the Facebook

users. Figure 5.3 shows a Privacy Model for Like button on Facebook.

5.11 Conclusion

This chapter first explains the different privacy risks raised by the “Like” button on

Facebook. Our likes leave a big trail of personal information about us on the Facebook.

This personal information can lead to privacy drifts such as damaging the reputation and

creditability of the user. The main goal of this paper is to propose a privacy model for

“Like” button on Facebook that protects the privacy of the users. With the social

networking attacks increasing day by day, implementation of this proposed model will

surely reduce the number of privacy information stealing and leakage incidents. The

next chapter will discuss about the privacy model which addresses users’ privacy

concerns toward third party applications on Facebook.

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