Charm offensive
As we've observed many times before, once a company gets beyond a given size, a new set of rules apply. When an entire business ecosystem depends on one company, its decisions have far-reaching consequences and it's unlikely to please all of the people all of the time.
Ten days ago we reported that Facebook was facing a witch-hunt over the way it allows end-users to control their privacy settings - i.e. who is able to view the stuff they post on their Facebook page. Well, the furore hasn't died down in the intervening time and there's a very real risk that the bad publicity is causing users to flee Facebook in droves.
A lot of the bad publicity has centred on the perceived Machiavellian character traits of Facebook's young founder and CEO - Mark Zuckerberg - so it's he who has taken the lead in reaching out and reassuring the world that privacy is paramount in his eyes - despite the fact that advertisers want to give him lots of money to know as much about his users as possible.
The Washington Post published a piece under Zuckerberg's byline this morning, entitled: "From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings". In it, he is contrite while insisting that everything has been done for the right reasons. "Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark."
Zuckerberg also spelt-out certain ground rules:
Here are the principles under which Facebook operates:
-- You have control over how your information is shared.
-- We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want.
-- We do not give advertisers access to your personal information.
-- We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone.
-- We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.
Meanwhile the Facebook boss has been corresponding with some of his blogger mates as part of this charm offensive and even Microsoft boss - Steve Ballmer (Microsoft has an equity stake and an advertising partnership with Facebook) - is jumping to Facebook's defence, as you can see in the video clip below published by Seattle tech blog TechFlash.
It's not clear what Facebook has done fundamentally wrong, other than make it too complicated to manage the settings on your Facebook account. So, while this particular row will probably blow over before long, it has probably made a lot of people think more carefully about what they share with Facebook, which may damage some of its more ambitious projects.
