Opinions of social web users on privacy and online DAM

Abstract

The web today hosts thousands of web user profiles. These profiles contain information, which is sensitive – a reason why the information is protected from illegal use by privacy policies. This kind of information is at times referred to as online digital assets. Online digital assets are either hosted on private or government websites and online systems depending on where users are registered. There is a possibility that after death or impairment of a user, the confidentiality of online digital assets may be compromised due to absence of ownership and weak legal policies. This may result into privacy infringement of the owner, that is, the deceased or the impaired as well as other people related to the affected user such as those that have had sensitive conversations with him or her. Using Facebook as a case study, this research examined social web users’ opinions on privacy and online digital assets management (DAM) after death or impairment of a user. The study used an online questionnaire to collect opinions from 22 Facebook users. Results show that the majority of respondents consider privacy and online DAM to be important issues. On the other hand, other Facebook users think that privacy in social networking websites is a mere illusion. There are also users who are not familiar with the concept of DAM and do not have any means of managing their assets in case of impairment or death.