Facebook: Beacon and Privacy - Case Study Example

? A Case Study on Facebook: Beacon and Privacy A Case Study on Facebook: Beacon and Privacy Social media has been popular in the recent years as the internet age booms and goes on in becoming known to people each day. In the increasing number of users of social networks and file-sharing sites, it should be noted that hackers and cyber criminals may be lurking around trying to woo some people into their dirty tricks. Safety and privacy are both needed to ensure that the users are protected from harm. As the use of social networks is even becoming monetized due to their popularity, social responsibility must be kept in mind. Social media has been popular but still other people do not know its exact definition. It is defined as the: online material produced by the public, distinct from content produced by professional writers, journalists, or generated by the industrial or mass media. Examples of social technologies used to create social media include those for communication (such as blogs), collaboration (such as wikis), communities (such as Facebook), reviews and opinions (such as Amazon reader reviews), and multimedia (such as YouTube) (Bozarth 2010, p. 11). Connections and collaborations have been established due to the rise of social media. Networks have also been established and people can interact anytime and anywhere they are. People do not need to meet personally just to have meetings and conversations. The popularity does not allow social media to fade away as they grow bigger as the user population increases. More people patronize them to share information with other people with almost no hassle and social media might later on dominate the traditional marketing and advertising tactics (Zarella, 2010, p. 1). In line with the background on social media, the case study is concerned with the prevailing issue that Facebook faces as it gains popularity and increase advertising support. The study will present the issue in a consultant’s point of view, one that will assist Facebook in dealing with the case on privacy and advertising. For the case of Facebook, they must remember that social media nowadays is differentiated from the traditional media since the latter is the “one-way modes of communication that broadcast information to a large population of people […] like television advertising, billboards, print ads, newspaper placement, and even aforementioned flyers,” (Chan, 2011, p. 2). Facebook grows its popularity because of its innovative features that allows people to connect to others and share contents and thoughts. The popularity allows advertisers to show-off contents to potential clients without spending much (Zarella, 2010, p. 3). For advertisers it is advantageous to save money by allowing them to gain potential clients. It is noteworthy to take note of the advertising strategy that is prevailing in Facebook that made users make some criticisms like the blog entry of Nate Weiner: So here I am, burning some brain cells and taking some time to relax playing a game on Kongregate, when a little window pops up in the corner of my screen and says ?Kongregate is sending this to your Facebook profile: Nate played Desktop Tower Defense 1.5 at Kongregate. Which immediately elicited a ?Hell no from my mouth (Martin, n.d., p. 1). The issue has something to do with privacy. It seems that users like Weiner got surprised with the alert he received. His activities were not private and anyone usually his friends can see it. That would not be much of a problem but the alarming is that as they use the games or other activities on Facebook; they get related ads to their activities. It is like a secret intrusion into their privacy. The problems being encountered happen as social media like Facebook becomes more famous each day. The platform offers great advantage to both the consumers and companies alike, but the rise of hazards also grows together with the popularity. Safety and privacy are at stake as hackers know how to get the sensitive information and data of people and they may lead to cyber crimes (Reyes, 2007, pp. 32-33). Cybercrime can be distinguished from traditional crime as the former cuts across the boundary of social norms, does not happen in real-time and it is still subjected to debate. On the other hand, traditional crimes happen in real-time as the crime happens physically (Wild et.al, 2011, p. 310). Usually hackers do the cybercrimes. They do hacking which is the process of accessing a computer system without the prior knowledge of the computer system owner. The popular culture labeled the people who do the cracking into computer systems as hackers (Strebe, 2004, p. 20). Perhaps the uninformed may claim that Facebook gives information to hackers as they deal with their privacy. Since 2007 the issue boomed because Facebook allows outside software to flourish in the social platform as those software can be made by large companies and small hackers alike. Also Facebook is regulated just a little bit by legal actions as the platform has almost no limits on the applications being distributed there (Martin, n.d., p. 5). Such regulation can pose intrusions to privacy also as hackers are geniuses with networks and computers as they can easily steal information from users. The company faces ethical problems basically because of minimal legal regulations on the applications being distributed. Talking about ethical problems, it can be rooted from ethics that is said to be “the philosophical study of good and bad, right and wrong. It is commonly used interchangeably with the word ‘morality’, and is also known as moral philosophy,” (Oliphant, 2007, p. 3). Ethics is one of the ancient forms of knowledge to become formally recognized by people. It is a branch of philosophy that deals with the rightness or wrongness of an action. Ethics differs from morality as the former is concerned with the “systematic study of moral beliefs” while the latter is concerned with “informal personal values,” (Brunner et.al., 2010, p. 39). Since ethics deals with subjective values, the changes and features are accepted by other users while others go the extreme to criticize them. An online community named MoveOn.org made a petition to Facebook to stop intruding with their privacy as companies use the names of Facebook users to advertise their products and publicize the things bought by users without asking their permission (Martin, n.d., p. 3). Surely that marketing tactic hurts the users as they were surprised with the actions of Facebook. In case more users will get upset, they may go to other growing social networks that are directly competitors of Facebook as said by R. Crusoe in his blog (Martin, n.d., p. 8). Once the problem is not solved immediately, Facebook may lose its popularity. Going on now to the main ethical problem of Facebook, the use of Beacon must be regulated as the social network becomes monetized and its revenue grows. Other than Beacon, several changes of Facebook also posed some ethical issues since it made some technological enhancements such as News Feed and Mini-Feed which informed the friends of the Facebook user about his page updates and recent online activities. It allows the friends to automatically check the activities without manually visiting the page. On 2007 Facebook opened to other companies for widgets and monetization allowing users to sell ads and do business. Widgets have been developed by various companies and even students who were able to start their own companies from the widget projects on Facebook. Advertisers also maximize the earning potential of Facebook by employing Beacon which is a behavioral targeting way of advertising. In such tactic, the advertiser would be able to track the activities of the user and send related advertisements according to the data gathered (Martin, n.d., pp. 4-6). Such move may be advantageous to the companies and Facebook but it may offend some users as they are not well-informed about how it really works. It may be similar to stalking as someone is able to know what a person does online. Privacy is very important as people do not like to be stalked and they want to ensure their safety. Third party software developers are able to get sensitive information as they have the behavioral tracking. Also other people can view the profile as they may ask some people that know the specific user and let them view the profile (Veer, 2011, p. 216). Virtual reality such as Facebook should protect the users like what the government does for its citizens in real time. Privacy is part of the rights that each person must have on and off the internet. Probably Beacon has gotten beyond the boundaries of the privacy of the Facebook users. The management of Facebook must remember that their core deals with the privacy of the users as they can customize the level of visibility of their profile online. Despite of it, Facebook has the Beacon advertising program that deals with the personal information collection of the users as potential clients of commercial businesses. Some member activist from MoveOn.org criticized Beacon and Facebook (Martin, n.d., pp. 7-8). In relation to the existence of the problem, Facebook should be very transparent about the Beacon and behavioral advertising. The users should have at least the chance to choose if they would allow Facebook to give their information to third-parties. As the users are the target market, their comments must be considered immediately or else Facebook might lose its popularity and later on the revenue drops. Also the management team of Facebook must have legal liability for the users in case they are not able to openly give the way on how privacy can be well-implemented and give the users a win-win situation. Facebook may also require the third parties or advertisers in their website to comply with stricter guidelines on privacy and advertising as business tactics may cut through the privacy of users. The keys to solve the issues are transparency, immediate actions and protection. After all, the platform becomes famous because of the patronizing users, so it is also part of the responsibility of the people behind Facebook to improve its services to cater the needs of the users. Facebook may publicize certain guidelines for the own protection of the users like separating public and private identities, making emails just for Facebook, and if certain information are optional, the users may leave them blank (Veer, 2011, p. 218). After all, the safety of users is primarily the responsibility of the users themselves, but Facebook team must keep in mind that they give value service to people. It is also a corporate responsibility to take care of the security of the users. Facebook owes its position right now to the loyal users of the platform. The management must protect both the name and reputation of their company and the needs and security of their users worldwide. References Bozarth, J. (2010). Social media for trainers: Techniques for enhancing and extending learning. USA: John Wiley and Sons. Brunner, s., Smeltzer, S., Bare, B., Hinkle, J. and Cheever, K. (2010). Brunner and Suddarth's textbook of medical-surgical nursing. Philadelphia: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Martin, K. (n.d.). Facebook (A): Beacon and privacy. Retrieved from Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/corporate-ethics/pdf/Facebook%20_A_business_ethics-case_bri-1006a.pdf Oliphant, J. (2007). Ocr religious ethics for AS and A2. USA: Routledge. Strebe, M. (2004). Network security foundations. California: SYBEX Inc. Veer, E. (2011). Facebook: The missing manual. USA: O’Reilly Media. Wild, C., Weinstein, S., MacEwan, N. and Geach, N. (2011). Electronic and mobile commerce law: An analysis of trade, finance, media and cybercrime in the digital age. Great Britain: University of Hertlordshire Press. Zarrella, D. (2010). The social media marketing book. Canada: O’Reilly Media. Read More