Stillinger mærkede ‘Privacy’
Time Magazine Puts Facebook Privacy Front And Center
The Time magazine cover story for the May 31st edition puts Facebook privacy at the center of the discussion about the future of the internet (and the company). While Facebook is working hard to release new privacy settings that make things more simple for users, the question of how much users are willing (and should be expected) to share is on everybody’s minds.
Ultimately, very little that’s new is revealed in the article. Instead, the article highlights Mark Zuckerberg’s well publicized position that privacy is changing and the world is becoming more transparent. As he tells Time Magazine, “What people want isn’t complete privacy. It isn’t that they want secrecy. It’s that they want control over what they share and what they don’t.”
Additionally, Dan Fletcher, who wrote the Time Magazine piece argues that Mark Zuckerberg needs to be more transparent with the public and “make his case for an era of openness”. While making his case is something that I don’t think is necessary, being transparent about how and why the company is choosing to implement settings the way that they have is critical.
What has become pretty clear at this point is that change is afoot at Facebook. While there is ongoing debate about how Facebook will implement privacy settings in the future, there should be a formal statement from Mark Zuckerberg in the coming days at which point new privacy settings will be announced.
Does Facebook Privacy Even Matter?
With the ongoing debate about Facebook privacy both within the company and in the media, perhaps it’s important that we ask a fundamental question: does Facebook privacy even matter? During a dinner the other night, someone asked me this exact question. The point of the person was that if we’re honest, there really isn’t that much stuff you share on Facebook that puts you at risk.
Do you really like morning sex? So does 125,000 other people. Do those individuals care if their boss knows about their interest in morning sex? Who knows! Perhaps 30 years ago your boss would have found a public statement about the matter to be revolting, but at this point hasn’t the shock value of such things become diminished?
While the media realizes that people are concerned about their safety (it’s toward the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), getting a click on an article has nothing to do with the fact that most users still don’t change their privacy settings (although at least tens of thousands have opted out of Facebook’s new “Instant Personalization”). So let’s examine the issue further.
Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg’s Position
Mark Zuckerberg believes in a concept called “radical transparency”. It’s a concept that was examined in depth in David Kirkpatrick’s new book, “The Facebook Effect“. As Kirkpatrick describes, radical transparency is essentially “a radical social premise—that an inevitable enveloping transparency will overtake modern life.” In other words the world is becoming more transparent and Facebook will lean toward having their users being more transparent as this shift takes place.
The greater issue facing Facebook right now is whether or not this increased transparency can be forced upon people. “Instant Personalization” and the new “Connections” feature, which associate previously private interests and put them in a public forum, have forced users to be more transparent. Not surprisingly, users and especially the media, have lashed out against the company. But what do users really want when all is said and done with the latest Facebook privacy fiasco?
What Users Want
If you were to ask me what users fundamentally want when it comes to privacy, I’d tell you they want the following:
- To not have drunken (or generally damaging) photos or videos of themselves show up to friends and especially co-workers,
- The ability to control whether or not their content shows up in search engines (and other directories),
- The ability to protect personally identifiable information (email address, phone number, etc) to avoid identity theft, and
- The ability to control who their information is shared with
Controlling Who Shares What
Facebook provides controls for most of these features except for the last component to a certain extent. In the new “Instant Personalization” program, Facebook has chosen which partners can access certain information about you, the moment you visit that partner’s website. In other words, Facebook has made a decision on behalf of users, who they can trust. They’ve stripped the users of a control they previously had.
Despite most of these partners being trustworthy companies, users (and privacy advocates) have fought back, saying that Facebook users should be the one to make the decision, not Facebook.
While users can “opt out” of the program, the users are essentially forced into the program. Regardless of what’s right when it comes to this individual program (which many users are rapidly opting out from), users also want to control what their friends can share. While there is a tool for controlling what personal information your friends can share about you (found here), there’s no way to prevent your friend from uploading a damaging photo of you.
While Facebook could choose to prevent users from tagging you in photos without your permission, that doesn’t appear to be something Facebook will cave on anytime soon, most likely due to its viral nature (it gets more people to engage with the site). So some things are simply out of Facebook’s control.
Choosing How To Behave
In this increasingly transparent world, the only way to truly protect yourself from damaging photos, videos, or otherwise, is to choose to behave a certain way. Don’t want drunk photos of yourself? Don’t get drunk (at least not around people with cameras). Don’t want to get caught playing hooky from work or school? Don’t play hooky!
The true fact of the matter, despite the questions of how privacy settings should function, is that we are increasingly responsible for our behavior because the “public domain” has expanded dramatically. Facebook has been an enabler of this process, however they aren’t the only ones responsible for it. If you believe that users shouldn’t post photos of themselves at a party, don’t hire them! If you don’t mind, then align yourself with people that hold the same values.
While Facebook does not have a right to force users to share information with partners, as far as I’m concerned, a more important conversations surrounds what you putting at risk by posting specific information on Facebook?
Important Data
Let’s be honest. Do you really care if Facebook shares your gender, age, or location with a partner? Probably not. Do you think they should be able to choose who gets access to that information? I would hope not. However step back for a minute and think about the bigger issue here: putting critical data about yourself (your social security number, home address, phone number, etc) online, increases your risk of something bad happening.
By avoiding placing this information all together, you are truly protecting yourself. It won’t matter what Facebook does with their privacy settings, if you control your offline behavior, you can control your online behavior and safety as well.
What are your thoughts? Does Facebook’s privacy policy have a significant bearing on your decision to use the service? Do you think people should be more responsible for their behavior (and information which gets put online) or should users have absolutely total control over their info (something which is technically impossible for the most part)?
Facebook Employees Debate Privacy Changes, “Simplified” Tools Coming
Following public criticism over a number of recent privacy changes, Facebook executives and employees have been “hunkered down” at its Palo Alto headquarters lately, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And yesterday, some results of those discussions appear to be coming out. “Now we’ve heard from our users that we have gotten a little bit complex,” Facebook’s director of public policy, Tim Sparapani, during a radio show interview, below. “I think we are going to work on that. We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks.”
Facebook’s internal debates have included the idea of offering ways for users to conceal their profiles “more universally,” according to the report. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has “resisted” changing from the granular, and recently-modified controls it has now. Another reportedly discussed possibility was changing the default settings of the site to be more private like they were previously.
“We have built a privacy setting for every new type of sharing [users] are allowed to have,” Sparapani said yesterday. “What that means is that in fact we have come up with an extraordinary number of privacy settings.”
The company is in the difficult position of trying to make the product more open so it can provide more value to users, third parties and its own business, while also meeting some users’ wishes for a more private system. Recently it has erred on the side of becoming more open, but the discussions suggest it is so concerned about the reactions that it is considering a deeper shift to be more conservative about privacy. We’ll see if the “simplifed” settings include more private options.
Will Facebook Become This Year’s Political Football? (And What Would That Mean for Its Product Roadmap?)
[Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Inside Facebook Gold, our new data and analysis membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth. Inside Facebook Gold presents weekly in-depth analysis articles exploring the most critical developments impacting the future of the Facebook ecosystem. Click here to learn more.]
While Facebook has been changing its product – and dealing with partially negative reactions from users and privacy watchdogs – for years, the latest round of media attention paid to Facebook’s recently announced products was different than it’s been in years past. In previous (and arguably much bigger) product announcements, like the launch of the News Feed in 2006, and the initial move to more public user profiles in early 2009, the changes were protested by users forming Facebook Groups into the millions of members (yes, ironically, people using the product to protest the product).
Now, this year’s changes were met with Chuck Schumer holding a press conference to call Facebook “The Wild West of the Internet” and an open letter from Schumer and three other US Senators to Mark Zuckerberg requesting that Facebook make Instant Personalization – a just-announced feature currently live on three partner sites – opt-in.
As someone who has been following the company closely over the years, the fact that Facebook product announcements are prompting immediate multi-Senator responses is definitely a sign of how the stakes have changed for Facebook since the days of “1 Million Users Against the News Feed.” Now, Facebook not only has to improve the way it communicates with users – it has to fight for its life inside the Beltway, or it could become a poster-child for politicians looking to capitalize on Facebook’s problems while the FUD iron is still hot.
Fundamentally, there are 3 different (almost religious) views on the way Facebook makes product changes:
- It is greedy and looking to capitalize on user data through advertising, to what will eventually become its own demise.
- On the contrary, the company is rapidly innovating given changing privacy and cultural norms on the Internet.
- A middle ground, that Facebook is gradually changing the way privacy works in its product as a result of what users demonstrate they want.
>> Read more of this article at Inside Facebook Gold
Facebook Preparing To Release Simple Privacy Settings
Facebook’s Public Policy Director, Tim Sparapani, spoke with Kojo Nnamdi today in Washington, D.C. and stated that the company would soon release simple privacy settings in the coming weeks. In addition to defending the company’s position for providing an extensive number of privacy settings (a position which is legitimate), Sparapani stated that there will be “simplistic bands of privacy that [users can choose from” in the “next couple weeks”.
Given that the company has come under significant pressure over the past couple weeks over new programs, including the highly controversial “Instant Personalization” program, it’s not surprising to hear Sparapani announce these features. What’s even more significant is that from the sounds of things, these “simple” privacy settings sounds as though they’ve most likely been in the works for a short period of time.
What I’m still wondering is why Mark Zuckerberg or any other executive haven’t made a formal announcement stating that they are listening. While representatives of the company’s communications department have stated that the company is listening and will effectively do the right thing, no formal statement has come from Mark Zuckerberg.
Perhaps this is a test of Mark’s ability to delegate some of the communication to the general public, however I’m pretty sure that most people want to hear that the company is listening from Mark’s own mouth (or at least a blog post under his name). While we are still waiting to hear from the company about the potential for making changes to the “Instant Personalization” program, just knowing that they are looking to simplify the privacy settings further is definitely reassuring.
If you want to listen to the full interview with Tim Sparapani, you can listen to it here. Do you find Facebook’s announcement of impending changes reassuring? Do you think the changes will be sufficient?
Shutterfly Launches Tool To Create Facebook Albums
Shutterfly, the popular photo uploading and sharing website, is giving Facebook users an easy way to create tangible photo albums from their uploaded pictures. They have integrated, their Simple Path photo-book creator with the social networking site such that now Facebook users can access all of their uploaded photos on Shutterfly.
All users have to do is log into Facebook connect from the Shutterfly website, and all of their Facebook photos automatically pop up as options to add to the photo book. The user selects the photos they want to use, and Shutterfly creates an album out of them that the user can then edit and personalize with captions. It is almost like virtual scrapbooking, and it seems very user friendly and simple to use.
The Simple Path photo book service also lets customers access photos saved on their computer, their Shutterfly account, or from any other Shutterfly Share site. That way, users can mingle photos from all different places to create a one of a kind photo album. President and CEO of Shutterfly, Jeffrey Housebold, said “[w]e know that consumers store photos in multiple locations, therefore we are offering a photo book solution that can access users’ photos wherever they might be stored.” Because the photos might all be different sizes and resolutions, the service creates a preliminary layout placement for them and users take over from there.
Though this is a great and easy way to create tangible and lasting memories with your photos, there is a paradox between the traditional printing of photos and posting photos on the internet. It is arguable that Facebook has essentially eroded the need to print photos to share, because by posting them on your profile they are instantly accessible to all your friends (or some, depending on your privacy settings). Remember when you could order doubles of your photo prints from the local pharmacy, and then any picture with more than two people in it yielded an argument over who got to keep the duplicate print?
Now you just tag your friends in the photos and everyone has a copy. Also, when they are posted online, you can show them to anyone anywhere at any time with the help of portable computers and mobile social networking applications. Physical prints degrade over time and are subject to fire, wind and floods but digital copies remain in pristine condition forever. On the other hand, for memories of holidays and special occasions there is nothing like a sweet photo album to flip through with loved ones.
Along with the launch of this new service, Shutterfly is also looking to boost its Facebook presence by starting a campaign looking for the most tagged person on Facebook. Users must join the group, “Are you the most tagged person on Facebook?” and a winner will be chosen when the contest ends on August 6, 2010. Twelve runner-ups will win one photo book, and one grand prize winner will receive five photo books of varying sizes. Better get tagging!
Facebook’s Fast-Loading and Free “0″ Mobile Site Launches
More than a quarter of Facebook’s users are accessing it through mobile devices every month, and the number of mobile useres is growing fast. But not every Facebook user has a good mobile data connection, or a mobile data plan.
So the company has been working on a simplified mobile site that loads faster, in part by minimizing some features. In partnership with 50 carriers in 45 countries, access to the site is free, even if users don’t have an existing data plan with their carrier.
The site, at 0.facebook.com, is launching today. See the current list of carriers and countries, below.
It lets people do basic things like read their news feeds, publish status updates and wall posts, and like and comment content. But, if users want to access some parts of Facebook, like Photos, they’ll have the option to click through, pay for the data service, and view the content. While Facebook can provide its service for free to mobile users, carriers can make money by the site’s features enticing people to pay.
The “0″ site follows on other efforts to make Facebook more accessible to users, including a now-defunct “Lite” web site and other mobile integrations with carriers. Check out our recent article on the topic, available in our Inside Facebook Gold membership service.
Facebook Prepares To Announce 500 Million Users
Facebook is working on plans for their 500 million user celebration, projected to take place at some point before the end of June. While we’d expect Facebook to make an announcement in the next couple weeks, an announcement should be expected well before June 25th, when the company would surpass 500 million if growth was currently linear. We’ve spoken with multiple sources that have informed us that plans are underway for the big 500 million user celebration.
While historically the company doesn’t host large celebrations, the company will most definitely toast to the occasion as it should roughly coincide with the three year anniversary of the Facebook Platform taking place in the next couple weeks. Despite the ongoing media-fueled privacy backlash against Facebook, there is still much to celebrate at the fledgling company.
Before the end of this year, the company should near the 600 million user mark and surpass $1 billion in annualized revenue. While the company still faces some risks from competition, the company will be the sole member of the 500 million user league. To think that the company was at 175 million users just over a year ago makes Facebook’s continued growth a dramatic one.
Look for Facebook to make an official announcement about the 500 million active user milestone in the coming weeks.