Sometimes it's nice to get away a few days, disconnect, and refresh the mind. And then you come back, and find out that Facebook wants to rule the world.
I was aware of the Facebook f8 announcements last week, but an impending vacation spared me the need to expend brainpower on it. I did not hop on this Facebook F8 story like all the other slathering Web 2.0 toadies out there. No, we're not like this. This is supposed to be an analytical and skeptical source of information. So I will tell you: Facebook wants to take everything. Watch out or they'll pick your pocket.
The heart of these new Facebook initiatives, loosely grouped as the "open graph," is that if you "opt in" to Facebook's new personalization tools, it will be able to track pretty much anything you do on the Web and your information relationships to other Facebook friends -- and show it to other people.
Now, Facebook uses the term "opt-in" loosely. That's because it has automatically opted in its hundreds of millions of users. Facebook apparently knows when and where you want to "opt."
Here's what I think about that: Boy, these Facebook people sure are greedy. They want to control everything. And most people who are trying to compete with them are pretty much screwed. Especially media companies and publishers. Many Facebook competitors for sure.
If you are a publisher or some sort of niche social network, you should be very, very careful of you you use the new Facebook APIs. Yes, it's true, Facebook's new tools will make it easier for you to "plug in" to social network. You may get more traffic. But guess what -- who owns the data? Facebook. As soon as you hook into Facebook, you will be handing them over the keys to your kingdom. And you know Facebook wants to advertise to your users.
It's all about the data. Google is about the data. Facebook is about the data. If you do anything on the Web that entails a service, content, and advertising, it's about the data of your users. That's your gold. And Facebook now wants to hijack all of the data on the entire Web. This is why Google engineers are freaked out about it. Geddit now?
So the big question is: Are users going to allow them to do that? Well, they already have. Because Facebook has decided by default that you are opted in.
Well, you say, the Web is already like that. Like Scott McNealy famously said, there is no such thing as privacy anymore. But I'm not just talking about privacy. Yes, the privacy freaks are going to have a cow about this. And you should really be concerned about which settings you've checked on Facebook. But I'm not just talking about that. I'm talking about business. Control. Owning things.
We are told now, over and over, that Facebook has 400 million users. It's allegedly surpassed Google in total audience (I still have a hard time believing this). So the really already own a lot of stuff. But that's not enough for the Zuck-man. Now not only does he want to own all these users, but he wants access to every single piece of data about where they go, what they like, and how they interact with the Internet.
Do you trust them? I don't.
After the gigantic Google Buzz cockup, as they say in Britain, Google has gone on the record with the BBC as saying it did insufficient testing of its new social networking product, which had privacy flaws exposed last week.
Last week the Web exploded with complaints from Buzz users about inadequate privacy features and email address book loopholes. The BBC story says that Google only tested the product internally and did not try it out with external users.
From the BBC story:
Google said that it was now working "extremely hard" to fix the problems. "We're very early in this space. This was one of our first big attempts," Todd Jackson, Buzz product manager, told BBC News. "We've been testing Buzz internally at Google for a while. Of course, getting feedback from 20,000 Googlers isn't quite the same as letting Gmail users play with Buzz in the wild." Many of the firm's new services are tested by the so-called Google Trusted Tester program, a network of friends and family of Google employees who are given confidential access to products before they launch. Buzz was not tested by this program.Read the whole story here.
Wow, I go out to pick up the kids and get a cup of coffee (okay, so maybe I also returned some library books), and I come back to find out that the Web is melting up in a huge Google Buzz backlash. Fun! Google (Nasdaq: GOOG): for a company so large, with billions of dollars in profits, you really did screw this Buzz thing up.
The bottom line is there are huge privacy loopholes in the Buzz/Gmail monster creation which are exposing people's address books to the great unwashed, and a whole load of people are complaining. One Gmail user now fears for her physical safety, and blames Google. And she's expressing it in a clearcut way.
How will Google respond to this? Will they apologize? Will they get sued? It's amazing when you think about it. So far all we've heard from Google executives is a bunch of wishy-washy feel-good techno-smack. They've responded with "product tweaks," oh yay! This could represent a landmark moment in the evolution of Google as a public company. Will they grow up?
Here's a great summary of the problem from Silicon Alley Insider (or is it Business Insider? We never figured that out...):
The problem is that -- by default -- the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile. In other words, before you change any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see the people you email and chat with most. A Google spokesperson asked us to phrase this claim differently. Like this: "In other words, after you create your profile in Buzz, if you don't edit any of the default settings, someone could visit your profile and see the people you email and chat with most (provided you didn't edit this list during profile creation)." (Freaking out already? Here's how to IMMEDIATELY make these list private and then edit them >)And here's a news roundup of more chatter about the Google Buzz meltdown from across the transom:
- Google May Strip out Buzz from Gmail (From SearchEngineLand -- Google better hurry folks!)
- TechCrunch says no, but it may be turned into another Web app.
- Here's the clarification, or something, from VentureBeat.
- Best Headline: "Wake, up, Google: The World Is Really Pissed Off About Buzz." (Silicon Alley Insider)
