Social media auto-overshare to meet its demise in 2013, says privacy law expert

Everyone knows someone who overshares on social media, from constant updates about daily minutiae to an automatically generated stream of songs listened to, articles read, games played and other matters blast-broadcast through various applications. Intentional over-sharers may be a necessary nuisance in our wired world, but the days of the auto-generated social media stream may be numbered, says Neil Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Privacy law expert warns of the perils of social reading

The Internet and social media have opened up new vistas for people to share preferences in films, books and music. Services such as Spotify and the Washington Post Social Reader already integrate reading and listening into social networks, providing what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “frictionless sharing.” “But there’s a problem. A world of automatic, always-on disclosure should give us pause,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.