GUIDELINES AND TOOLS FOR INCORPORATING PRIVACY IN SOCIAL NETWORKING PLATFORMS

Built-in privacy is important for promoting users’ privacy and trust in Social Networking Services (SNS). Up to now, privacy research has its focus on the development and employment of PrivacyEnhancing Technologies as add-on applications and on investigating users’ privacy preferences. This paper draws on the principles of privacy-by-design and extends previous literature by identifying privacy requirements for the development of privacy-friendly SNS platforms. The paper also evaluates currently embedded privacy practices in four popular SNS platforms (Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest) to assess the level of built-in privacy and proposes a list of guidelines and tools SNS platform designers can employ.