Privacy and access control in federated social networks

Abstract

Online social networks (OSNs) are increasingly turning mobile and further calling for decentralized social data management. This trend is only going to increase in the near future, based on the increased activity, both by established players like Facebook and new players in the domain such as Google, Instagram, and Pinterest. The increasing adoption of social networks in the workplace has further led to the development of corporate social networks such as those provided by Yammer, which was recently acquired by Microsoft. As individuals from different companies will need to interact as part of joint teams in these federated social networks, questions of privacy and access control arise. This chapter identifies the challenges concerning the above aspects, surveys the state of the art, and identifies directions of future research.