Is it ethical to use privacy setting loopholes in other people's Facebook photo albums?

[McDuff]

I am a regular user of Facebook and have noticed regularly that if a FB friend of mine is tagged in a photo, then I can see all of that album even if the album owner isn't a friend of mine (would often have never even of heard of them).

Now either the album owner has set the privacy settings to 'Friends of Friends' or something like that ..... or there is a some sort of bug in Facebook privacy settings generally. I would hope that if someone sets their album privacy to 'Only Friends', then this shouldn't happen.

Now when these albums appear on my News Feeds, I don't think they're any harm looking some of the photos within them. They've been presented to me and I'm sure they've been presented to a lot of other FB users as well.


However, I've recently found out that albums can be discovered by searching for someone who isn't your friend (say, Person A) and then clicking on their "View Friends" link. In the list of the person's friends, there's often a fair portion whose profile is publicly viewable (not a friend, but can click through). If that public profile (say, Person B) contains a photo tag or photo comment of Person A's album in their feed, then the whole album can be viewed.

You could say that the first example was quite different than the second example as in the second, the user has to seek out the photo album in a rather complex way. But is the "album searcher" any more guilty than the FB user browses entire album after album in her News Feed which perhaps weren't really intended for her viewing?


I suppose I'm asking if the ethical responsibility lies with the viewer/searcher not to view photos that may be none of their concern? Or is the onus on the album owner to ensure their privacy settings are such that only the appropriate people see them?

[richgeasey]

I'm a bit torn here. On one hand you know you are doing something the person may not want to have happen, and on the other if the person did not make it private then what's the issue.

Generally my opinion is if you have to ask then generally it's not ethical. However, if you are not doing an harm then I see no reason why not.

[sgtsweetpants]

If you know their intentions and violate them, then you are taking advantage of their misunderstanding/ignorance of the technology and that's ethically questionable at best.

They have a responsibility to know the technologies they use well enough to protect themselves, but that's not an ethical responsibility, it's a practical one.

Whether this digression is bad enough to make you stop is for you to choose.

[klutzyputzy]

When you post a photo album you have to option for it to be viewable by everyone, just friends, friends of friends, or your networks and friends. The people whose album you can view with out being a friend have chosen one of the more lax security options, therefore it is perfectly ethical to view their photos.