Does Privacy Matter to Most Facebook Users? Let’s look at some data.
Written by Jay Meattle (contact - e-mail) -- February 19th, 2008 | Share - Save - E-mailDoes privacy matter to most Facebook users? Take a look at the chart below, and judge for yourself (weekly unique visitors to facebook’s privacy settings pages):
Even after all the recent mainstream media coverage and debate surrounding Facebook’s controversial beacon program, online privacy in general, and Facebook making available universal beacon opt-out — traffic to Facebook’s privacy settings pages has essentially been flat. NOT A GOOD SIGN!
It’s likely that the average Facebook user DOES care about their privacy, and know they should do something about it, but are mostly unaware or don’t know what they can or should do. Should Facebook be doing more around online privacy education? There is a lot of unintended sharing going on, and I think it is in Facebook’s long term best interest to do so.
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:16 am
People won’t complain, or think it’s important, unless they face the issue themselves. If someone misuses access to facebook profiles on a mass scale, and there’s a big flap about it, you can bet your boots traffic to that page will go up.
February 20th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
We believe that many users have no idea what information Facebook is extracting from them and/or just how to truly have control over their privacy options. As Kango said, it will take something major to occur for there really to be an uprise. There was a bit of of talk regarding privacy issues when the Beacon platform came out, however most users were not aware of exactly what the platform did for them and their privacy and therefore were not concerned. Facebook’s slow response to those who did express anger in the platform showed that they were milking it for as long as they could. It seems more users will have to become more aware of their invaded privacy before anything is done one either end.
February 20th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
@Kango Ling @Social Marketing Journal –
Exactly. All it takes is one ugly incident. That is why I think Fb should be proactive reg. online privacy education. They are in a great position to lead this conversation.
February 20th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
hmm… i believe they probably should be doing more around user privacy education, however at the same time i’m not sure it’s as huge an issue as most people think it is.
security and privacy are important, but they are nonetheless still just features, and there are tradeoff decisions that both users & facebook (& others) make based on perceived value & ROI… they aren’t absolute imperatives, nor is there any “absolute” security or privacy.
all that said, i’m sure some user education would help the situation… not to mention their PR ;)
February 22nd, 2008 at 4:08 pm
That’s why I never use it.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:22 am
Keep in mind that once your privacy settings have been set to something you’re comfortable with, there’s no reason to ever visit the page again.
The fact that there still are any visitors means that more and more people are changing their privacy settings.
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
More and more facebook users are now demanding for their privacy as they do not want their personal data and pictures to go in hands of those who would utilise them for bad or anti-social acts.
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 am
The biggest problem is the users, most don’t know enough about the privacy and the dangers.
DOTTED: http://www.newsdots.com/industrynews/does-privacy-matter-to-most-facebook-users-letrsquos-look-at-some-data-/
April 29th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I didn’t go to the privacy page- I just left Facebook altogether.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:11 am
How many people left facebook to go to another social networking site with similar privacy rules?
If you want to be part of the social networking scene you have to want to be found.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:03 am
The thing is, the privacy settings page hardly EVER changes! There aren’t that many page views because you go there ONCE and decide, okay, I want to make my profile private to everyone but my friends, and I suppose I don’t want my Uncle Gary reading my blogs. You don’t need to check up on it every day. Or every month. So should we be looking at page views here, or should we be looking at the number of users who have done any privacy setting changes to begin with, and what forms and types, and amongst what age groups.
December 29th, 2008 at 7:00 am
“The interesting thing is that most users don’t care or know about Facebooks privacy policy, and if they do, they can’t or won’t do anything about it.”
I’ve emailed facebook but they have made actually contacting them extremely difficult and the email address I used I found only by googling and coming across this website. No reply as yet.. it’s been several hours and in that time our ad campaigns have continued to run and I can’t stop them or change them.
http://www.facebookunmasked.com
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:23 pm
As Kango said, it will take something major to occur for there really to be an uprise. There was a bit of of talk regarding privacy issues when the Beacon platform came out but it soon died out.
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