Falling behind the social curve, eh?
Posted by Brent Leary on Thu, Aug 13, 2009 @ 09:57 AM
This is a guest post by Marshall Lager, Founder of Third Idea Consulting.
Those of you who follow the social networking space-and I figure that's most of you, to some extent-have probably heard about the beef between Facebook and the federal privacy commission of Canada. (News article via Toronto Star.) For those who haven't, or who want a refresher, here's the deal: There are four main areas where Facebook failed to meet Canadian privacy standards, including:
• Retaining users' account data indefinitely, regardless of whether the user has deactivated the account or even died.
• Access by third-party app developers to the account info of a user's friends, not just the user him/herself.
• Lack of safeguards for people whom users choose to identify, through tagging of pictures or otherwise posting personal info.
You can dig through the Privacy Commission's report in detail here. As with any government document, however, this one is rather lengthy.
What Canada's government stands up to on behalf its citizens, we in the U.S. take it upon ourselves to fix. While this shows worthy initiative on our part, it also means that we're probably missing a lot of the finer points of how we're getting screwed. Either that, or we just don't care as long as we can play Bejeweled Blitz into the wee hours.
Facebook, for its part, is working with our maple-flavored neighbors to fix the problem areas. Some of the issues are (arguably) not even the company's fault; if I decide to tack your name onto a photo I have of you, or post your contact info, that's my bad, not Facebook's. Privacy and account controls can be difficult to navigate-they have been improved, partly as a result of the Canada flap-so I can definitely see how users might have felt unable to protect themselves.
The thing is, this isn't the first time Facebook has gotten into trouble over its privacy policies or terms of use. It's not even the second time. Remember the furor over Facebook Beacon? Or those times when the company changed the language of its terms-of-use agreement in ways that left users thinking they were signing away the rights to their own data forever? Privacy and openness are like a hive of angry bees, and Facebook keeps poking it with a stick. While I respect Mark Zuckerberg and company for owning up and responding to user demands, it worries me that they have to do it so often. You'd think they weren't paying attention.
There's another issue at stake here, though. According to numbers quoted in the Star article and elsewhere, approximately one-third of Canadians are on social networks, making the True North the largest per-capita user. How the hell did that happen? Between their social media solidarity and the spread of Tim Hortons donut shops into Manhattan, we seem to be losing our edge. If we're not vigilant, hockey might soon supplant baseball as our national pastime. Actually, I'd be okay with that.
As a final note, I expect to be leading some early-morning discussions at CRM Evolutions 2009 (registration link) later this month, and one of them will be on social CRM. You can bet I will have something to say on this privacy thing, and maybe about Tim Hortons donuts as well. Them's good eatin', lemme tell ya.
Marshall Lager is the founder and managing principal of Third Idea Consulting. Mr. Lager most recently served as Senior Editor at CRM Media, writing news, blogs, and feature articles on the above topics for CRM magazine and its Web site, destinationCRM.com.