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posted by janrinok on Sunday April 06 2014, @07:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the trust-has-to-be-earned dept.

Selena Larson writes at ReadWrite that Facebook has a perception problem, which is largely driven by the fact it controls huge amounts of data and uses people as fodder for advertising and just can't shake its ultimately flawed nature and gain the trust of consumers.

"Perhaps the largest driver of skepticism towards Facebook is the level of control it gives users-which is arguably limited. Sure, you can edit your profile so other people can't see your personal information, but Facebook can, and it uses your data to serve advertisers says Larson. "Keep in mind: This is information you provided just once in the last 10 years-for instance, when you first registered your account and offered up your favorite movies, TV shows and books-is now given tangentially to advertisers or companies wanting a piece of your pocketbook."

Another thing people hate about Facebook is that when the time comes for someone to abandon the social network, whether over privacy concerns or frustration with the company, Facebook intentionally makes it hard to leave. "Even if you delete your account, your ghost remains. Your email address is still tied to a Facebook account and your face is still recognizably tagged as you, even if the account it's associated with has vanished." Even when you die, Facebook continues to make money off you.

Facebook has many exciting projects, but it won't have an audience left unless it addresses its perception problem says Larson. "Trust is paramount, especially on the Internet, and people need to know that Facebook is making things to improve the human experience, not just spending billions to make even more billions off our personal information," concludes Larson. "Prove to us you don't just care about money, Facebook, and perhaps we'll all realize how much you really have grown in the last 10 years."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Sunday April 06 2014, @10:57PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Sunday April 06 2014, @10:57PM (#27198)

    Customers generally pay. In this case you pay with your information. If you don't like how the information is used, you should generally not frequent the site. The problem with FaceBook is that they've changed what they do with the information and how they share it and list trust. When you collect personal information instead of money, trust is one of the most important things to have.

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  • (Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Sunday April 06 2014, @11:58PM

    by pe1rxq (844) on Sunday April 06 2014, @11:58PM (#27213) Homepage

    No customers pay with money. But facebook users are not the customer.
    The free stuff is them feeding the users. They then produce the product they sell, to the advertisers.
    Facebook users are livestock.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @07:32AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @07:32AM (#27316)

    If you don't like how the information is used, you should generally not frequent the site.

    If only it was that simple... I never ever in a million years visit the site, yet however, they're pretty well informed about what I do and when. How come? Because there are a lot of people who I interact with who do use the godawful site and who rat on me. Most of the people know quite little about me but when you combine all the things the silly people know and cross relate them, you get a pretty complete picture.

    Of course the site abuses those much more who actively participate but at least they kinda sorta give their consent to do so. (But because they have no idea what they consent to so it's pretty questionable whether we can call this giving ones consent.) I guess that "services" like these are among the best evidence that evolution is very much an ongoing process...