IVR Deconstructed

Oh Mark Zuckerberg, you are always a simultaneously reassuring and eloquent CEO.  The above quote is an actual statement from Zuckerberg (professional, right?) regarding the Federal Trade Commission suit that was brought against Facebook regarding the many privacy violations the site has perpetrated.

The FTC is no joke.  Established about a century ago the commission operates as an agency of the federal government to ensure consumer protection and prevent deceptive and unfair acts towards consumers.

So what, in brief, were the specific objections cited in the suit that the commission brought against Facebook?  Sharing users’ personal information with third parties without their knowledge or consent, changing privacy practices without informing users thus making information designated as private public, promising users they won’t share personal information with advertisers then sharing it anyway, and allowing access to information and data from deleted or deactivated accounts when they claimed that it would be inaccessible.

Wait, what?  Why are millions of people still using this site?  Think for a moment if this happened at any other company.  What if Google made public users’ information and also sold it off to advertisers while explicitly promising not to?  What if IVR companies made updates to their systems without informing clients about sweeping changes that could affect their personal or professional lives?  What if a retail website like Amazon decided to share user’s purchase history and also sell details of purchaser’s buying habits to market research firms.  Everybody would be up in arms, the business would be in serious hot water, the company would be in blatant violation of several laws, and there would be massive repercussions.

And what happened to Facebook?  Basically a slap on the wrist.  They have to “make sure” that they fix all of the privacy loopholes on the site, establish a privacy program, and every two years for the next 20 year obtain third-party audits of the privacy program.  They are basically getting away with murder, and not because the FTC hasn’t tried to curb and reverse these egregious privacy violations, but because each and every user who uses site continues to enable them.

I have mentioned plenty of times that I no longer have a Facebook account (primarily because I figure that anyone worth my time to talk to deserves an email, a phone call, or even a nice hand written letter), but why is everyone else still accessing this site and uploading massive amounts of their personal data to a site that clearly has little or no respect for individual privacy?  The above mentioned violations aren’t just mistakes, they are flagrant violations of consumer’s rights without their knowledge or consent.

But don’t worry frequent Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg has appointed not one but TWO privacy offers to make sure that the millions upon millions of data packets they collect and store from users worldwide is being treated with the utmost care.

So perhaps in this day and age where everything happens instantaneously at the touch of a button, Facebook users should do a serious cost-benefit analysis before continuing to use the site.  Just because you can do something easily, does it mean you should?  Facebook’s commitment to privacy remains to be seen, but the site’s credibility has most certainly been damaged.  But will millions of users all over the world take heed?  Only time will tell…