Privacy in Online Social Networks

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the identification of the privacy threats to provide a feedback to the users so that they can make an informed decision based on their desired level of privacy. To achieve this goal, Solove's taxonomy of privacy violations is refined to incorporate the modern challenges to the privacy posed by the evolution of social networks. This work emphasizes on the fact that the privacy protection should be a joint effort of social network owners and users, and provides a classification of mitigation strategies according to the party responsible for taking these countermeasures. In addition, it highlights the key research issues to guide the research in the field of privacy preservation. This chapter can serve as a first step to comprehend the privacy requirements of online users and educate the users about their choices and actions in social media.