Is Facebook really the devil? I don’t see it written in their Terms and Conditions.

One of the leading stories on UK news this morning was regarding the notion of businesses banning Facebook from the workplace.   Much as I am a strong advocate for social media sites,  I am even stronger advocate for improving efficiency – something which the great FB cannot even manage for it’s own site, (do you see an easy-to-find link to a person’s pages and groups on their profile?) let alone inspire in it’s users.

While I have recently been converted to a much more frequent FB user, for a variety of reasons, I still find it frustrating that the public in general largely misunderstand the purpose of this site.  Social media is just that: social.

While there is no question that Facebook can be a valuable tool for business people to network and promote their message,  it works on a basic principle of connecting an individual to other people who may be of interest, either professionally or personally.

And therein lies the rub.  It is becoming more and more difficult on Facebook to separate business and pleasure.   So much so, that a recent article in the New York Times highlighted the significant number of disgruntled users fleeing the site, citing reasons of increased commercialism.

But this is just the latest black mark on Facebook’s reputation, caused not by Facebook’s faults (of which I won’t get into here, but will surely do so in future posts) but by a lack of understanding from the general user.

The last public outcry was over the fact that their profile information might be shared with advertisers or other third parties.  While that may sound shocking to the average member of the public who has been conditioned into a state of panic over online identity theft, it would be ridiculously naive to expect a massive piece of busy internet real estate such as Facebook to not leverage their popularity and platform to generate revenue.  It would be akin to Disneyworld flinging open it’s doors and inviting everyone to enter their magical kingdom of pleasure, leisure and entertainment for free.

Personally, I like the fact that the ads that appear next to my profile are tailored to me.  I would much rather see ads for products, services and groups that I am genuinely interested in than the flashing banners that greet me on many other sites to announce that as their 1,000th visitor I have won {insert bait prize here}.

So when Plaxo sent me an email today announcing changes to it’s Terms and Conditions that include:

1. Demographic portions of your data (such as zip code, gender, or industry) and usage patterns may be shared with our trusted partners who deliver advertising to you on our behalf. Consistent with our current policy, personally identifiable information (e.g. your name, address, phone number, email) will not be shared with third parties for advertising purposes without your consent; and
2. The advertising networks who deliver ads on Plaxo may use their own cookies to collect information about a user’s activities across their entire network of Websites.

I stayed calm, and will wait to see how this information is used – either to benefit myself, the advertiser, or a friendly Facebook balance of both- before making a decision to stay or leave. Either way, at least I read the T&Cs and can make my decision armed with that (readily available) knowledge.