What happens when you take all of a person’s data they put into your system and make it real, real easy for others to view stuff that previously took some effort?

Well, an outcry, for one.

Facebook, in an effort to improve the transparency of some of the stuff people were doing in their accounts, made that stuff available to all of a person’s “friends.” (In Web 2.0 vernacular, unfortunately the word “friends” can mean anything from a real, true friend in the traditional sense of the word to “complete stranger.” I have no idea why it’s acceptable to misuse the English language like this.)

The problem, of course, is that people don’t really want other people — including even their “real” friends — knowing every little change or edit they make to their profiles, calendars, or other information. Some, yes, and the important stuff, well, they’ll send invites, IM or email. But when you update your hobbies to remove “skydiving” and all of your ‘friends’ see that, what’s the purpose? Isn’t that just going to cause a spurt of messages, “Hey, why don’t you skydive any more?”

Facebook, in its defense, helpfully offers:

Maybe if your friends are all going to a party, you want to know so you can go too.

Or, umm, maybe you weren’t invited to the party, ya know?

Facebook made a very traditional business mistake — assuming they knew what their users wanted without fully thinking through the privacy and psychological implications of a simple user interface change. Even user testing in small groups (the traditional UE test method) wouldn’t have picked this up. Only having people consulting or on staff with the company who understand privacy and behavioral issues online would’ve (and should’ve, if they have a Chief Privacy Officer) caught this.

Unfortunately, in the wild of building “Web 2.0″ applications such as this, Facebook doesn’t appear to even have a privacy officer:

http://www.facebook.com/press.php

(But they do, unhelpfully, have a TRUSTe seal of approval. This is the same TRUSTe that has a nice track record of protecting company’s interests, while ignoring consumers’ concerns.)

There’s hope, though, as they posted this blog entry after the uprising from its users:

Calm down. Breathe. We hear you.

Source: Doug Jones Sneezed. 1:23pm – CampusProgress

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 6 Sep 2006
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