Hive, like other social networking sites, allow users to create a profile, connect with other people, express their interests, and browse other user profiles. Users are free to disclose their information via their profile to others. Specifically, in Hive, users express what they like to get the benefit of social network and get the comments about what they like, find people who have the same taste with them, and get news about their interest fast, because information spreads so quickly in social networks.
These features however – the core proposed value to our users, can put our users at the risk of privacy concerns. We would mention the most important threats to the users’ privacy here and clarify how we would cope with them in Hive to make Hive a safe and secure place for our user to enjoy the power of social networking.
The first concern is about the information that users decide to disclose on Hive. User’s shared information might be explored by unexpected people for unexpected use. This is not only a concern in Hive, but also a concern of all social networks. This threat is mainly because of the nature of the digital world in which information is searchable and easy to copy and store.
The second concern is about the amount of control that users have over their identity-relevant information. Because based on the information users share in their profile the real image of them in the real world could be resembled. It also includes comments, photos and videos that the user shares.
Hive can track activities of their users not only in the Hive network but also from other social networks that users give permission for. Therefore, another concern is that Hive would be able to gather unprecedented amounts of information about users from other social networks. It is also concerning that this data collection could sometimes be without the informed consent of the users.
There are also more general concerns. For example, the concern of government’s access to the users profile or similar concern in which the right of free speech could be threatened because of political matters.
Furthermore, there are a number of other concerns about user privacy in social networks which Hive is excluded from. In more detail, one of the revenue models that social networks use to generate income is advertising. In order to make advertisement more beneficial for their partners they collect the users identity-relevant data and give the partners access to the information. The reason we believe Hive is excluded is because focused advertising in Hive would be based on the identity of a particular interest page. For example, there would be specific page for ‘Titanic Movie’ therefore any related advertisement can be showed in that page without inferring the users personal data.
One more privacy issue that would not be a concern of Hive users is the concern of financial related issues, like credit card information, detailed address and such like. There will not be any financial transactions available on Hive, which cuts off the possibility of commence related crimes.
To meet the mentioned threats, and in order to keep our users safe and secure, we would impose and publish transparent membership rules and community standards to share our ideas, policies and attempts of taking care of our users’ privacy. Please read the draft in a later post.