I had hard time believing that advertisement revenue is enough to sustain the growth of these companies. Even if it was enough, I had little doubt in the power of corporate greed for more revenues. Hence, the commercialization of the user information, to me, was inevitable. So I was hardly surprised when I read the raucous discussions about the changes to privacy policy of facebook.
I tend to believe that the changes facebook is making to their privacy policy (which, to my surprise, happens to be longer then the US constitution) are driven by their need to increase their revenue by cashing on the information provided by the users. Yes, it is true users have the choice to “opt out” which is easier said then done, especially when it is in the interest of face book to make the "opt out" procedure difficult. Without any intervention from government and/or threat of competition, I have no doubt who is going win this tussle between facebook and users. Since when have the bigger fish starting protecting the smaller ones? So I was delighted to see when I read the following two articles. One is about the possible legislation/supervision from government and other is about the rise of competition like pip.io.
- Senator Charles Schumer has urged the F.T.C. to provide guidelines
- Rivals Seize on Troubles of Facebook
Let us hope these developments will create enough pressure and facebook will address the situation sooner rather later.
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