THE FACTS ON FACEBOOK
THE FACTS ON FACEBOOK
Bruce Ruble, in the HS Technology department at Georgetown Day School, did a bit of research on Facebook.com and wrote this report for the GDS community.
The community is talking about Facebook.com. Many HS students are signed up and are generally having a jolly time playing with it. Adults are just finding out about it and they are worried. They are concerned about inappropriate language and pictures, about the posting of private information (full names, phone numbers, email addresses, grade levels, birth dates, etc.) on a public website, about the potential for hurt feelings, harassment, bullying and worse, about all the chatter around drinking, drugs, sex and parties. All of these are things are worthy of further discussion, and I’m sure that will happen.
—I, too, am concerned about some of the content that students are posting, but I want to talk about Facebook from another perspective. Facebook is a very deceptive website. It looks like a free, fun social community for teens, private and off-limits to adults. In fact it is a commercial website, whose primary purpose is to make money for its owners. How do they make money if they don’t charge students to be on it? They sell advertising (Apple, Paramount Pictures, Victoria’s Secret, etc.,), which shows up as banner ads and “sponsored discussion groups,” which college students can join. In May 05 they also received $12 million from Accel Partners, a venture capital group. But in addition to these sources, they collect, analyze and sell the information students post to companies who want to sell their products to teens. In other words, Facebook is also a marketing research website.
In the Privacy section of Facebook, they write:
Sharing Your Information with Third Parties We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship.
For example: We may provide information to service providers to help us bring you the services we offer. Specifically, we may use third parties to facilitate our business, such as to send email solicitations. In connection with these offerings and business operations, our service providers may have access to your personal information for use in connection with these business activities.
In other words, parents and teachers may not be able to see what students have posted on Facebook, but that information is given to Apple Computers, Paramount Pictures or any other company or individual that Facebook has a financial relationship with. (Yes, I know they say “may”, but don’t you think they’re just being disingenuous? Re-read the quote above, omitting the word “may” and I think you’ll understand what they are up to.)
And why is this information valuable? Facebook provides real-time, constantly-updated data on what teens like and dislike-music, movies, clothes, food, drink, vocabulary, cars, parties, etc. And the depth and range of the information is amazing. More than 4 million HS and college students are on Facebook; 10,000 to 20,000 new members are added every day. The way the data can be sliced and diced is phenomenal. Is your company interested selling your new product to 14 year-old Asian American girls who live in SF Bay area? Facebook can tell you all about them; it has data on thousands of kids who fit that profile…fashion, slang, favorite movies, everything. And the ad you create for these kids will be precisely targeted to them; copy text, photos, spokes-model, background music. It’s brilliant from a marketing perspective and the icing on the cake is that the kids gave all their personal information away for free and that they update it all the time.
In addition to selling private information, Facebook owns everything that is posted by students. That’s right, all the text and pictures that students have posted to Facebook are now owned by them. And since they own those words and images, they can do anything they want with them, including selling them.
In the Terms section of Facebook, they write:
Member Content Posted on the Site:
By posting Member Content to any part of the Web site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, perform, display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such information and content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such information and content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
All I can say is, Whoa! Those pictures from that 18th birthday party posted on your high school section of Facebook … Do the folks who posted them really want Facebook to “use, copy, display, reformat, license and distribute” them at any time and any place Facebook wants to?