Facebook users are 'working for free': Expert

Hyderabad: An expert Tuesday termed Facebook users as "products" of the company who are working for free and helping the social media giant make money.

"We all think that we are users of Facebook. You must remember that you are all products of Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook). By providing your information, he is making use of you and he is selling that information and what you get is a free Facebook account and what he gets is dollars in his bank," Lt Gen (Retd) A V Subramanian said.

Subramanian, an expert in electronics equipment who has headed the simulation development division of the Indian Army, was addressing Cyber Space Defence Summit 2016, organised by Computer Society of India (CSI), Hyderabad Chapter.

"... Very indiscriminately, we share information which is extremely personal, and not only that we share that information, and we make it more and more focused by our likes and dislikes," he said.

"We actually help that guy (Zuckerberg) to hone his advertisement value by that... You are the products he is selling, and more than one and half billion Facebook customers who are there, you are the free workers who are available in the group," Subramanian said.

CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of BioAxis DNA Research Centre (BDRC) Pvt Ltd, Amit Kumar, said there is no international treaty on cyber security "wherein two countries can communicate on cyber laws, what is allowed, what is not allowed" etc.

Though India formulated a cyber security policy in 2013 and revised it in 2015, it has not been implemented and the outcome (of this policy) has not been encouraging. "We need to tighten our cyber security policy," he said.

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