The Facebook Privacy Storm: It’s all about managing expectations

The current storm of protests around Facebook creates a real challenge for our industry. We need Facebook to be successful in shaping the way people’s social graph can be used to deliver more targeted and relevant messaging. Unfortunately all the angst about how they are using users’ personal information is hurting the shaky trust consumers have in the medium.

A recent survey by Vision Critical provides some concerning data that half of US consumers polled say they don’t trust social networks and even more troubling nearly two thirds are very concerned about their privacy online.

The rising concern about how Facebook manages its users’ privacy isn’t helping and could be avoided. It’s all about managing expectations.

The problem was that it came as a nasty surprise to most Facebook users that their personal settings were being used to sell more targeted advertising. They didn’t find out about it directly from Facebook, they heard about it from privacy advocates who were less than balanced about what Facebook is trying to do.

Now Facebook is back-peddling and making it easier for customers to adjust their privacy settings. They have struggling to stay in control of the situation. It’s similar to the situation they faced with Beacon.

There’s a simple lesson here: Manage expectations. If Facebook had engaged its users earlier to explain what they were doing and why, it seems unlikely they would be facing the same problems. Had they had been more transparent, they wouldn’t be facing the same trust issues.

Adam Turinas