Facebook Privacy
Facebook is one of the most popular social network websites today with a membership count of more than 55 million. What is astonishing is not only that it has such a huge follow list, but that all this has been built in less than three years.
Face book was launched like only yesterday – February 4, 2004 and today is worth billions of dollars. Its founder is Mark Zuckerberg is only 23 years old and he is already dealing with leaders in the field like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo who are hankering to buy a share in this gigantic phenomenon.
What about the privacy of the members?
Initially, Facebook profiles were available only to the members. However, recently the Beacon advertising program was introduced on Face book especially to give access to the search engines to read the advertisements placed on the Facebook member profiles. This has increased the revenue of the members exponentially while has opened some serious issues on Facebook privacy. That means the profiles of the Face book members might be visible by non-members depending upon the interest and the advertisements placed on their profiles.
A website has been initiated especially to protest on the matter of privacy infringement by Facebook's Beacon. The website, MoveOn.org, which has a membership of 70 thousand and still growing, has petitioned Mark to look into the privacy threat and remove Beacon from their Face book. This would represent about 0.2% of the total 55 millions that Facebook has as members and that means the issue and demands for Facebook privacy comes from a very small group of people.
Nonetheless, Mark agreed to do something about it and even apologized for the lapse. He has informed that he values the feelings of all the users of Face book and this issue would be resolved. True to his word, he has added a turn off option to the Beacon – the gateway to search engines – so if you do not want to be "seen" on the Net, you would just have to turn it off. Others Face book members can still see your profile as before, but you would not be visible to non-members anymore no matter what you post on your profile as advertisement.
What is the result with regard to the privacy issues?
Ironically, nothing much has changed. The majority of the Facebook profiles are still accessible to the search engines because most people do not know what Beacon is and do not care to switch it off. Actually, those who do notice the Beacon and use it find it extremely useful and profitable and would never want it off.
This is a win-win situation. Those who want that their Face book profiles be spiderable they can allow it to be so and those who do not want it can just put it off. In the meantime, a lot of people found the Beacon the answer to their prayers as a marketing tool.
Some were puzzled about Mark's immediate action to such a small ripple created by MoveOn.org. However, the spokesperson of Facebook said that they wanted everyone to know that they take Facebook’s privacy issues seriously and believes that trust is still the most important factor on a social network site.
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