Abstract
Data collected from the profiles and the digital identities has become a valuable currency for the mobile ecosystem, especially between users and providers. Services that required them are also described as the ground floor in direct linked with the infrastructures and as intermediate layers between networks, platforms and applications. The frontier debate between innovation and protection of privacy is shown off undefined and unstable. Therefore, a comparative analysis between ‘Privacy Terms and Conditions’ as well as the interrelation between operative systems (Apple iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone), social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google +) and applications (Instagram, WhatsApp, Line and Vine) have been carried out focusing on Privacy issues. Two main tendencies were appreciated in relation with the two principal operative systems: Apple iOS closed environment and Google Android open source. They reconfigure the functional structure and design of platforms and applications in different ways. The liquid spheres observed varied from the first approach that tried to control every action and personal information from the binomial operative system-device and the second one that allowed the user actions and information to be more susceptible to interact with any kind of applications and platforms while the system is linked to information aggregation services to collect the data. Prominent aspects were the various stages of synchronization between the different levels of personal information (contacts, profile, digital identity and localization). Focusing on the case of Portugal, other complementary conclusions obtained from focus group and surveys showed a strong circumstantial pattern behaviour and a concern about privacy issues taking care of some actions while admitted checking if they had the terms and conditions involved - which are too ambiguous - but not reading them. Described also by other international previous researches, they showed lack of rationality in some attitudes and performances and limitations on the extension between knowledge and action.
Highlights
The ubiquity, the diversification and the intertwining of the consumption scenarios, with a marked tendency towards transversal use of the media and access modes, as well as its insertion into social dynamics where real identity games become objects of consumption; redefines the value perception of the contents by the users and converts them into a valuable source of the new resource of the digital economy: the personal information. Both Apple-iOS and GoogleAndroid laid the basis for the environment – platform – grouped around an app store, led either by an operative system – Google Android - or by the binomial terminal-operative system – iOS iPhone/iPad
The lack of awareness about the immediate risks, the lack of rationality of users when providing personal data, the relevance of the temporal priority in literacy as well as the limitations between interaction of knowledge and action / experiences intimately related to memory, the liquid spheres from a technical perspective as from users behaviour one; lead to a worrying environment if bearing in mind that Privacy Policies / Terms and Conditions iJIM ‒ Volume 9, Issue 1, 2015
Main differences were found between the Apple iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone system and the Google Android one
Summary
The delimitation of the public and private spheres in the construction of the different profiles and the digital identities through smartphones on the Internet, especially with the expansion of the different type of applications and social media, has become a focus of attention both from providers and users perspective. Remembering Wellman’s concept of portal2 [4] applied to Human Being process of communication by smartphones, users exist in a timeless time [5] that is framed by the possibility of the perpetual contact [6] and in a kind of virtual configuration of the online space where the directionality and the distance are confused or undefined [7] In this undefined and unstable mobile ecosystem, users generate an ever-changing profile and digital identity, both conscious and unconsciously, as they have to deal with the liquid spheres constantly to be negotiated
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