At The Crunchies Friday night I was only mildly interested in what Mark Zuckerberg had to say until he stated rather matter-of-factly that Facebook's privacy policy was changed because "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time. We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are." I couldn't believe my ears. This is clearly the Facebook company line that from this point forward will be parroted to all who will listen to justify their dramatic reversal in corporate philosophy relative to user privacy.
Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb wrote a great piece yesterday highlighting Mark's statements at The Crunchies and says quite credibly; "That's Not a Believable Explanation .... I don't buy Zuckerberg's argument that Facebook is now only reflecting the changes that society is undergoing. I think Facebook itself is a major agent of social change and by acting otherwise Zuckerberg is being arrogant and condescending."Facebook is changing it's policy for one reason only: They've concluded the only way to monetize their user base in numbers that will be acceptable to their current, and more importantly, future IPO investors is to expose as much user activity to data mining and advertising (search, display, & PPA) as possible. Period. And by the way, we know you need to make money, and we're cool with that. Some of us are willing to pay a subscription fee if necessary to quarantine ourselves from most of that, and the rest of us would be willing to be bombarded with whatever targeted ads you want to throw at us. But don't piss on us and tell us it's raining. We can see through this "we're only doing this because that's what you want" charade, which is both disingenuous and poorly executed. Yes, Facebook has a millions of users. And No, many will not leave. But without some meaningful attitude adjustment Facebook risks the real possibility that users will reduce their on-site activity to levels that will render them nearly impossible to monetize. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is already ample evidence to suggest that both new user growth and existing user activity have slowed over the past six months. The pressure to perform financially in advance of their widely expected IPO is increasing, and it's starting to show in both Facebook's words and actions. And none of it is good news for Facebook users.
It's sad the way Facebook has compromised the privacy principles they trumpeted in their earlier days. And they can say whatever they want, but the fact is that they're not "reflecting current social norms". Yes, we are becoming more comfortable exposing certain parts of our lives online. For example, we're more comfortable sharing things on Twitter because we know the rules upfront - you post, it's public. But Facebook promised us a certain level of privacy, that's the social contract that we signed. We shouldn't have to run through an incomprehensible maze to re-establish the privacy we were promised in the first place.So stop insulting our intelligence by telling us that you're only giving us what we want. It's NOT what we want, but we know it's what you desperately need. So how about a little respect? Because our continued relationship with you is not a given.