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Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

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Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#41

Post by mrtksn »

kbenson wrote: post #33
mrtksn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

I'm not sure Digg had enough money lying around to just buy the next "cool" thing that comes along, as Facebook has done a few times now.

I added IE to my example to illustrate that having all the money in the world may not save you when your brand becomes toxic. Some may say that FB users don't care but with IE it also was just geeks and devs, but it turned into a crusade and now everyone "knows" that the first thing you do after you have a fresh PC is to install Chrome.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#42

Post by pknerd »

Agree with those who says it will not effect Fb much and it's incomparable with other past apps/social media platforms. The reason is that unlike others Facebook exploited us, humans in such a way with help of technology and psychology that there is almost no friction to get into Facebook world. On top of that the content people see on their feeds make them glued all the time. I have not been using Facebook for weeks and since then the news broke of privacy and stalking I shared multiple times with friends and family but no one gives a damn about privacy(unless one suffers him/herself) so they are happy to have some happy moments reading religious, political posts or joke. So, #deletefacebook campaign might work among some tech elites but not among commons, specially among villagers in long distant areas of Pakistan who use Facebook to interact with family members in cities.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#43

Post by sjg007 »

mrtksn wrote: post #31
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

So they’ll go to Instagram?

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#44

Post by cookiecaper »

mrtksn wrote: post #31
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

> Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg.

Digg was abandoned because it broke itself. The codebase that all those users knew and depended on was completely trashed (the original author hangs out here sometimes), the site dropped a number of its key functions, and the user experience was redesigned to maximize Digg's ability to show ads, no matter how obnoxious that got, with many people saying that it was almost entirely ads by this point (I had personally stopped using Digg years before the big v4 debacle, so I can't speak to this directly).

People want the path of least resistance. They'll tolerate some ads, but their tolerance ends when it's just easier to click over to the other guy's site and get a comparable experience. If you neuter/break Digg, and reddit is right there, well...

The path of least resistance for Facebook users is still Facebook, regardless of the news cycle. Facebook will remain dominant until it is no longer the path of least resistance, just like everything else.

Users have different levels of tolerance. The moment a switch is the path of least resistance differs for everyone, usually corresponding to their level of emotional investment in the platform and their individual tech savvy. Facebook has a lot of very invested, very non-tech-savvy users.

The right types of questions to ask are along the lines of whether we're sure competitors have sufficient ground to catch up to massive incumbents and keep them honest (and in this case specifically, whether certain misrepresentations or violations occurred that should be made to materially affect market standing through government intervention). For the most part, tech is non-competitive due to terrible legislation like the CFAA.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#45

Post by cryoshon »

hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

is uber a profitable company?

and how can consumers avoid giving business to equifax?

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#46

Post by TAForObvReasons »

ghaff wrote: post #38
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth remembering what happened to Microsoft after it was hit with anti-trust action: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/microsoft/long-antitru... The stock was literally dead money for decades and the ramifications are clear. The recent selling pressure is driven to an extent by memories of Microsoft and the financial impact. The stock is in no meaningful sense a bargain.

Microsoft's stagnation had far more to do with their failure in mobile and the fact that their operating system and Office markets (where essentially all their money came from) were stagnant to declining. Oh, and all the cool new development (a traditional Microsoft strength) was happening on other platforms. But they finally got a credible cloud strategy together which recognized today's realities which is why their…

> “Since the antitrust suit, they have become much more cautious and much less aggressive,” said Michael Cusumano, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, who just wrote about Microsoft in the book “Staying Power.”

> “They’re afraid, it seems. Whether it’s antitrust in U.S. or in Europe, they seem to be slowly reacting to the world around them, rather than trying to get in there fast."

Certainly some academics would nontrivially attribute the strategic moves to anti-trust-related conservatism

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#47

Post by FussyZeus »

mrtksn wrote: post #31
hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

> If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away.

This is already sort of happening anyway with the "my parents are on Facebook now" problem. That I think is a much bigger threat to Facebook's future than any regulations that are coming.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#48

Post by panarky »

hodder wrote: post #3

Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't. The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse. With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

Remember when sexual assault and harassment were routine, and powerful men could do what they wanted with impunity?

There was an awakening, the public mood changed, people were energized and emboldened to take action. What used to be an open secret is now taboo and many powerful men have been fired and disgraced.

Remember the awakening about the unhealthy effects of sugary carbonated beverages? That wasn't a one-time fad as sales of soda in the US have dropped every year for the last 12 years.

Similar awakenings are now happening in economics, politics, law enforcement, and now digital rights and privacy.

I'd be very surprised if the outrage fades away with no serious damage to Facebook.

Quitting Facebook leads to higher levels of well-being [1]. People are waking up to this reality, just like they woke up to the dangers of smoking, and it's long-term negative for Facebook and their shareholders.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soda-sales-study/u-s-soda...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27831756

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#49

Post by pknerd »

pknerd wrote: post #42

Agree with those who says it will not effect Fb much and it's incomparable with other past apps/social media platforms. The reason is that unlike others Facebook exploited us, humans in such a way with help of technology and psychology that there is almost no friction to get into Facebook world. On top of that the content people see on their feeds make them glued all the time. I have not been using Facebook for weeks…

Not sure why was I down voted? A little explanation could help.

Re: Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices

#50

Post by mrtksn »

sjg007 wrote: post #43
mrtksn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg. If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away. Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to de…

So they’ll go to Instagram?

What happens if people start talking about how much they hate Zuckerberg and start looking for alternatives and the cool kids start suggesting each other some other social network that's technically good enough but never took off because didn't benefit from the network effect?

Then anything he touches becomes toxic. Zuckerberg isn't even divisive like Trump, he may have issue finding people to rally with him against the deserters.

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