There have been a lot of calls by government agencies, consumer groups, and individual users for Facebook to better control the information it provides to third parties. Now, it is taking another step.
As reported by Deepa Seetharaman and Elizabeth Dwoskin for the Wall Street Journal:
“Facebook’s restrictions on its user data, which were announced last year and put into effect in May, are rippling through academia, business, and presidential politics. Dozens of startups that had been using Facebook data have shut down, been acquired, or overhauled their businesses. Political consultants are racing to find new ways to tap voters’ social connections ahead of the 2016 presidential election.”
“’Facebook giveth and Facebook taketh away,’ said Nick Soman, who collected the locations of Facebook users’ friends to enhance his anonymous-chat app, Reveal. He later sold the app to music service Rhapsody International Inc. Mr. Soman said he admires Facebook, but learned a lesson about relying on third parties for a key component of his app.”
Click the chart to read more.
It was only a matter of time before Facebook started to crack down on the amount of information that is publicly accessible to app developers. With Facebook being one of the largest and most successful social medias ever created, it is obvious that Facebook holds a lot of data from the profiles people create. But when most people create a profile on Facebook, they intend for their family and friends to be able to view their information and stay connected, not the whole start-up community that is trying to take advantage of their information. Many start-ups use this data, such as relationships, work history, religion, education, in order to orchestrate very successful targeted marketing campaigns without the consent of the people they take the information from. But unfortunately, even if Facebook makes this information private, there are still companies that will be able to get around it and sell the data to start-up companies.
i don’t know,in fact, i don’t want these companies which get users data from Facebook to shutdown now, but i must give applause to Facebook to support these great decision, no one wants other people to pry their private life and information, i can’t image that if one day every people whatever who is and at where can get my information through website easily, and at that time what will happen.
Although it has died down in popularity with youth, a lot of people do spend hours a day on this social media website. Facebook and in the Internet in general have various posts related to politics that people will see regardless of whether or not some things were restricted on the site, so it almost seems like too much effort is being put into something that isn’t worth the time and money. However, I do think it’s very fitting that restrictions have been made. Because of the growing influence technology has on today’s society, it makes perfect sense as to why businesses would want to regulate what is happening on social media, because it does have a big influence on people and people that religiously check up on social media sites like Facebook are greatly influenced by what they see and read on the site.
Now days that most people share many aspects of their personal lives on social media, I think its a great idea that Facebook, the major social media player, starts limiting the access to peoples profiles, that might even turn out good for Facebook as now they could get even more users who before were afraid that their information was going to be used as a tool for marketing. Hopefully other social media companies start following Facebook’s initiative and protect more the privacy of their users.
In today’s day and age, privacy is becoming a huge concern for businesses and individuals. With social media, businesses are offered a great opportunity for promoting, and individuals are offered a great opportunity for keeping up with old contacts and friends. Even though these opportunities are great, they are offered at a certain cost of privacy liability. People have to be very careful right now about what they post on websites like Facebook, and it was only a matter of time until Facebook started realizing that they are not going to be able to offer the laid back privacy laws that they do. I am very happy to see Facebook taking a stand to these privacy issues, and hopefully it will be a start of a trend of social media privacy laws.
I never had a Facebook so I cant truly relate to this article other than the fact that if I did, I would not want a company to know such details about me such as my hometown, likes, or education history. Friends of mine have complained about stores and ads popping up with very specific generated ads. I have noticed that since I have put my phone number into some accounts, I am now getting calls from stores and companies that I have never heard of. Companies and corporations should not have the right to know about the details of people’s lives.
I personally never had a Facebook or any form of social media including a Twitter, Instagram, Myspace, etc. As a result, I am not directly effected by this change. However, the reason why I never had an account is due to privacy reasons and just plain old invasion of space. Anyone who I want to remain in contact with, I simply will text, call, send pictures, etc. in order to maintain a relationship. I do not wish to have third parties looking into my business and prefer to stay off the inter-web. I do think this change was past due in taking place as we as human beings need our protection and privacy especially involving our personal information. I feel Facebook is taking a leap forward with this implementation!
I think it’s great that Facebook has decided to limit the amount of data third parties can access about Facebook users. I think that many people were, and probably still are, unaware the Facebook allowed third parties to access personal data which might have led to a false sense of security. I personally deleted my Facebook account almost a year ago because I was uncomfortable with the idea that Facebook was sharing my data with other companies. I don’t plan on reactivating it even with this change in privacy policy. However, I do feel that Facebook made a good decision in limiting the access of user data to make the user feel safer, even if some users might not be aware of this.
I think it’s great that Facebook is beginning to crack down on the access to data. Although I don’t have a Facebook, I wouldn’t want companies having access to photos I was tagged in, my birthday, religious/political affiliation, etc. I feel uncomfortable that information such as my email and location would still be available to companies if I did have a Facebook profile.
Although one of the main messages regarding social media is cautioning young adults on posting inappropriate content, I think the availability of information and privacy on the part of online social media services is a major issue. I think it’s great that Facebook is becoming more and more strict about the information they offer app developers and outside companies.
Today, privacy is such a prominent issue for both businesses and individuals. Facebook has been one of the most popular social media sites for the past (almost) decade, but privacy has been spoken about a lot more over the past couple of years. Employers, teachers, professionals, always tell students and potential employees how seriously they should contemplate what they post on social media since there are so many ways for people to hack into people’s private postings. It makes sense why businesses want to regulate what is going on on social media. If the influence wasn’t as big as it is from this site, it wouldn’t strike me with the same level of importance.
It’s about time that Facebook started to crack down on this. It isn’t fair that third party vendors are getting my informations without my permission. From a business standpoint I understand because they are trying to do business but from an ethical standpoint this is unacceptable. There are different methods to obtain information but this should not be one of them
Finally, Facebook decides to crack down on there privacy. Its horrible how any one could have access to your social life and what you post on Facebook. This effects people when applying for jobs. The employer may see something on your Facebook that they do not like and not hire you without even knowing you! This is a real good move on the part of Facebook.
As a consistent user of Facebook I think that it is a great thing for the company to be cracking down on the access to data on someone’s profile. I believe that Facebook has privacy setting for a reason and if a person has their profile set to private so that only the people they are friends with are allowed to see their posts, it is for a reason. Even though when someone signs up for Facebook, or any social media for that matter, and decides to put their information out there there should be a right to privacy and not anyone should be able to search your name and find out endless information about you.