Want Facebook to Share More Data? Start a Campaign & Vote With Your Feet

May 17th, 2008

By Justin Smith

After Facebook at least temporarily removed itself from the Google Friend Connect program this week (a program it never officially joined as far as I can tell), some folks in the 280/101 corridor have been complaining that Facebook is not currently more open to sharing user data.

Ultimately, with most questions of balancing consumer and corporate interests, I am a strong believer in the power of the free market to do what is best for the customer. If you don’t like the way Facebook is handling your user data, you should start a campaign. If Facebook doesn’t listen, leave. If enough users leave, Facebook will have to change its approach, simple as that.

The problem is, nobody outside Silicon Valley cares about making their Facebook data portable right now. There are two groups of 50 users each on all of Facebook campaigning on this issue. The DataPortability.org Cause has 92 members. It’s not that this is not an important discussion, it’s just that almost no Facebook users care enough to make a stink about it – they’re all too busy playing Scrabulous.

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5 Responses to “Want Facebook to Share More Data? Start a Campaign & Vote With Your Feet”

chuck sonic Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Facebook is evil…no really… it’s not a matter IF they’re gonna be evil, they are already.

They have staged two clear data “walled garden” land grabs in a row that are not in the users interest. How much proof do you need? Some are already getting spammed from third party Facebook sources.

Swim in their murky waters if you want but be ready, there’s blood in the water and the sharks are circling. BTW That Great White you see on you left at 7 o’clock… that’s Facebook.
saracen Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
“they’re all too busy playing Scrabulous”

Quintessentially true. All these technorati are discussing an issue with an application that the legions of users of said application don’t care one bit about. Keep on yapping!
Marc’s Voice » Blog Archive » The people united will never be defeated Says:
May 17th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
[...] The cat is out of the bag. [...]
dave mcclure Says:
May 18th, 2008 at 9:08 am
absolutely agree.

it’s not really an issue for mainstream users.

change will always happen through competition, not thru standards bodies attempts’ to change corporate agendas.

if / when someone figures out how to make more money by making “data portability” features more interesting, then it will happen.

and not before.
AboutFaceDigital® - links for 2008-05-19 Says:
May 19th, 2008 at 5:39 am
[...] Inside Facebook » Want Facebook to Share More Data? Start a Campaign & Vote With Your Feet After Facebook at least temporarily removed itself from the Google Friend Connect program this week (a program it never officially joined as far as I can tell), some folks in the 280/101 corridor have been complaining that Facebook is not currently more o (tags: Facebook, Friend Connect) [...]