Does someone need to stick up for Facebook?
Posted by Darren Enta on Tue, Oct 19, 2010
The same week that “The Social Network” the bio-film about the creators of the juggernaut Facebook fell from the number one ranking in the box office, the social media site itself suffered a black eye at the hands of the Wall Street Journal.
The film has collected $46 million at the North American box offices since its release and has been a highly discussed topic on both social media sites and forums for months. This past weekend it was dethroned at the box office by the soon to be cinematic classic Jackass 3D and just as the film about the website lost ground with movie goers the site’s administrators were attempting to put out fires set by a WSJ article.
It looks like all commotion is over user ID’s. Facebook assigns these ID’s to every account and critics object that they are used by third party application developers to monitor usage and harvest personal preferences and then capitalize on that data by leveraging it to marketers. This claim is not a new one and has been addressed by Facebook explaining that if information is being obtained it is not being done by Facebook or for profit, but is a design flaw in the way that browsers store information. Privacy changes and other measures quickly went into effect and ever since Facebook has been asked to employ even more security measures to ensure that user information is not monetized to sell to advertisers.
People opposing this view argue that this practice is done overtly by marketers using various methods that are not held up to nearly the same level of scrutiny. Gas station loyalty programs, grocery store “club cards” and even credit card companies sell this information to marketers readily and make no attempts at shielding that fact. Knowing that, do you think this is Facebook’s problem?
Marketing and advertisers will find a means to solicit your business. These may be helpful suggestions or they may be unwanted pestering. Either way you will be exposed. No one wants to feel that they are being profited from especially without receiving some form of compensation. If you sign up for that “free” toaster next time there is a promotional offer from a credit card company or you get a “free” football phone when you extend your subscription to Sports Illustrated those come at a cost more than the subscription you agreed to pay or the fees of the new credit card that you applied for. Those companies are then providing your personal email address, phone number or residential mailing address to other marketers to then in turn provide you with more “great offers”.
It is imperative to keep in mind that there are few places when interacting online that your privacy is guaranteed. Even those places that guarantee your data to be secure have experienced security breaches and will continue to as long as there are individuals out there who can capitalize on that information.