Facebook, Google+ and the Ongoing Battle for Your Private Data
lipiec 31st, 2011Take cover! The titans of the Web are about to clash. Facebook is now facing its biggest threat to date, with Google going full steam ahead at them with their new weapon of mass destruction, Google+.
Google doesn’t have a good history when it comes to social networking with both Google Wave and Google Buzz failing to catch on. The company, however quickly learns on its past mistakes and just by looking at Google+ one can notice that the they must have invested a lot of time and money in making their latest venture a potential Facebook killer. With Goggle’s enormous advertising potential and hip attitude, many people I know have followed the new trend and set this graphic as their Facebook profile picture:
The media hype around the fight seems to be getting louder by the day and many fan projects deepen the animosity between the two Internet giants even more. For example, my favourite Like vs. Plus website.
In terms of fan migration, it is hard to say what exactly makes people abandon their Facebook accounts. What’s obvious is the snowball-like effect it will cause. Migrating users will drag their friends with them and businesses will peg along. Of course, businesses which have already moved will start attracting their competitors (one has to stay innovative, after all) closing the vicious circle and increasing the momentum of the whole process.
At this point, there is one thing I can say for certain: for a social networking website, migration trend is a matter of life and death. Facebook is bound to do anything in their power to prevent their users from switching to Google+. The reason why the two can’t co-exist is simply that using two separate social networking websites with the same core functionalities would simply be impractical, form an everyday user’s perspective.
With the same basic principles behind „liking” and „+1ing”, „groups” and „circles”, and „posting on the wall” and „sharing in circles”, there’s little battleground space left for Facebook and Google+. This can only mean that all those small things and small prints will matter more than ever.
image source: benchmark.pl
One good example of this is both parties’ terms and conditions and privacy policies.
User data is the new Internet gold. People feed their private information into Facebook for free, generally unaware that their „likes” and „interests” from their profile pages are used by advertisers for targeting their campaigns.
According to wired.com, one of the Facebook’s clearest weaknesses are its 6000-word-long privacy practices, which have come under attack many times for being confusing, ever-mutating and self-serving. Facebook’s privacy controls remain difficult to navigate, despite efforts at simplification. For instance: Try to find the button to turn off having your “Likes” included in ads.
So what’s different about Google+’s privacy policy?
For one, it’s much shorter — just a sentence or two past 1,000 words. That, however, can be a little deceiving because Facebook’s policy covers all of its services, while Google+’s version has links to its other privacy policies, including ones for Google generally and the +1 button specifically (source: wired.com).
This, however, leaves a lot of room for misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Google has long emphasised that it won’t use their users’ search history to create targeted ads, but with such lax T&Cs, it’s hard to believe we have more than their word for that. After all, it’s your private data including your hobbies, interests and search history they are after. Just have a quick look at the 2009 breakdown of Facebook’s estimated revenue:
- $125 million from brand ads
- $150 million from Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft
- $75 million from virtual goods
- $200 million from self-service ads.
(Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-down-facebooks-revenues-2009-7#ixzz1TgZ6TZdM)
BZ
VOCABULARY:
- clash – [ENG] a violent confrontation – [PL] starcie
- threat – [ENG] sb/sth likely to cause danger – [PL] zagrożenie
- go full steam ahead – [ENG] to go forward with full power – [PL] iść całą naprzód
- catch on – [ENG] – gain popularity – [PL] przyjąć się
- animosity – [ENG] – strong hostility – [PL] konflikt, animozja
- abandon – [ENG] leave, desert – [PL] opuścić
- drag – [ENG] pull along – [PL] ciągnąć
- vicious circle – [ENG] never-ending, self-intensifying process – [PL] błędne koło
- battleground – [ENG] a piece of land where a war was/can be fought – [PL] pole bitwy
- lax – [ENG] loose, not clear – [PL] luźne, niejasne
