Social networking website Facebook has once again run into a backlash from changes being made to its privacy policy. As reported by the BBC, the new conditions were introduced earlier this week with a pop-up box asking members to review and select their privacy settings. However, like previous changes to privacy and usage conditions, the change is attracting a large amount of negative feedback.

Digital rights groups and bloggers have responded with criticism of Facebook's changing policy, claiming that these are unnecessary and encouraged users to share their updates with the wider online community, as well as making content available to search engines. However, Facebook has responded by saying the changes should help members to manage updates they wanted to share, not trick them into revealing too much.

This is not the first time that Facebook has received such a response to changes, which reflects the extent of membership and usage of the site around the world. However, although it might damage their reputation in the short term, it remains to be seen whether this backlash has a long-term affect on usage of the service.

Facebook began testing the latest privacy changes during 2009 before introducing them site-wide. The changes let users decide who should see their updates, whether all 350 million Facebook members should see them, and if they should be viewable across the web. A spokesman said the changes to privacy made it easier to tune the audience for an update or status change so default settings of openness should have less impact, although users still have the ultimate choice of what to place on their profiles or updates.

Labels: facebook, privacy, social networks

The Wall Street Journal covers the latest announcement from Facebook that it has now reached 300 million users, another sign of the continued growth of this popular social networking site. This means that an extra 50 million users have been added since July, when the 250m mark was announced, so the upward growth curve continues at a rapid rate.

Of course all these users are not regular users of the site, but it still makes for an impressive user base of registered names, with 70% reported to be based outside of the US now. Facebook also claim to have moved into a positive cashflow situation now and are expected to earn more than US$500 million in revenue in 2009 - another significant growth in the past year, up more than 70% on the 2008 figure.

Labels: facebook, social networks

Facebook, the market-leading social networking site, has been forced to change its global privacy policy following negotiations with the privacy commissioner in Canada. A report by the BBC says that Facebook was recently found to breach Canadian law by holding on to users' personal data indefinitely and has therefore agreed to make changes to the way it handles this information and be more transparent about what data it collects and why.

The other main stumbling block that has been an issue for some time has been the inability for users to deactivate or delete their account, but this is now being changed so that it will be possible in the future. The decision could also have implications for other social networking websites.

As well as updating their privacy policy, Facebook has said it will make changes that will give users more control over the data they provide to third-party developers of applications, such as games and quizzes. These changes will require applications to state which information they wish to access and obtain consent from the user before it is used or shared.

Labels: facebook, social networks

An article in Business Week considers how the use of real-time websites may start driving online business in the future. Following the success of Twitter, the ubiquitous micro-blogging site, the report interviews an investor of this site along with over 20 other companies that are developing the "real-time Web" - the term used to describe the rapidly increasing number of live social activities online, from 'tweets' to status updates on Facebook, to the sharing of news content, web links, and videos.

The real-time web is being considered by some as the Internet's 'Next Big Thing'. Although this emerging sector is so new and currently unfocused in its longer-term potential, apparently many startups are now staking claims in this field and drawing interest from investors.

It is yet to be seen how these websites can turn a healthy profit and drive future growth in the web. Twitter is still exploring ways to generate revenue from its huge user base, while Facebook has struggled to turn its rising popularity into profits. However, with the growth of high-speed Internet connections, a growing number of mobile devices with full web browsers, and new technologies that enable instant transmission of messages and data, the opportunities for real-time communications are growing and now need to be applied to a profitable business model.

Labels: facebook, internet business, twitter

Both Twitter and Facebook have been subject to some extreme attacks in the past few days from online hackers who are targeting these high profile social networking sites with the aim of causing disruption to their service. As reported by the BBC, Twitter was taken offline for more than two hours whilst Facebook's service was "degraded" as both sites were subject to so-called denial-of-service attacks.

These attacks can take various forms but often involve a company's servers being flooded with data in an effort to disable them. Such attacks often use networks of computers - known as botnets - which are under the control of hackers, often as the result of previous viral attacks or 'Trojan horses' that have infected computers around the world. The strategy is often employed by protestors against, for example, government websites or to disrupt high profile sites for publicity.

Labels: facebook, twitter, virus attacks

Facebook signed up its 100 millionth member last August and is expected to reach 200 million shortly, representing a staggering growth rate that has seen the numbers double in 8 months. This article by the New York Times reviews how Facebook has developed and the challenges it now faces to maintain this momentum and to maximise the potential revenue from this membership base.

Facebook has developed its own momentum as well as a passionate user base that has reacted poorly in recent months to proposed changes by the company to privacy controls and also the recent redesign of users' home page. It is also facing increasing competition from newer start-ups like Twitter, the micro-blogging service which is attracting current media focus, plus there will be a growing issue between the original users of Facebook - young, tech-savvy early adopters - who move away from the service as it attracts a wider (and older) user base.

Labels: facebook, social networks

The BBC website has reported that the popular social networking site, Facebook, is coming under an increasing number of threats from hackers who are trying to obtain personal information about users of the site. Apparently there have been five separate security problems in the last seven days. The hackers are reported to be creating fake messages padded with details of Facebook members in the hope that they can obtain information and access to users' details by capitalising on the trust and social links that drive the network.

They are also taking advantage of the hundreds of applications that have been developed for Facebook's users, with one malicious application has tried to trick people into adding it by claiming that their friends were having trouble looking at their profile. If the application is added it spams itself to every Facebook friend that a member of the site has. So far, however, security experts say that these rogue applications have been scary and a nuisance more than anything else, but this remains a big concern for the operators of Facebook, and their millions of users.

Facebook had also been under attack from a virus with a new version of the 'Koobface' virus targeting members of the site again, with the previous attack at the end of last year. The new variant uses a Facebook message to try to get people to visit a fake YouTube page and install the malware. To make it look more plausible, the virus posts the image from a Facebook member's profile on the video page. Once installed the malicious program hunts for cookies on a victim's computer and uses the details it finds in the small text files to log into other social sites that person may be a member of.

Labels: facebook, virus attacks

An article by The New York Times reports on plans by Facebook to extend its reach across the Internet by allowing users to access other services with their Facebook login. Now described as the world's largest social network, Facebook has launched 'Connect' which gives users the chance to login to other websites and to see their friends’ activities on those sites. The new Connect service also gives members the opportunity to broadcast their actions on those sites to their friends who use Facebook.

Coverage on these additional sites remains limited at the moment and are mostly US-focused websites, but the intention is that major Internet properties will begin to share at least some of their usage data so that users don't need to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites. Such programmes will help the emergence of a new “social web”, where interaction and 'chatter' amongst friends will infiltrate those sites that have been entirely 'unsociable' to date. It can therefore also be used as a way for recommendations to drive user traffic and activity across the Web in a more seamless fashion.

These moves raise the sensitive issue of privacy again with these services and how the data might be used by Facebook and the other partner sites to 'monetise' the traffic and behavioural data being captured. This remains new territory for the web whee boundaries are being tested and where Facebook has previously fallen foul of the privacy lobby with its 'Beacon' advertising network which was dropped in the face of criticism last year.

Labels: facebook, social networks