Tag Archives: Facebook

Updated Instagram Terms Of Service

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Instagram, purchased by Facebook back in April, have made their first update to their Terms of Service since the acquisition. As expected, these provide Facebook with more access to Instagram’s (and thereby your) data.

For example:

To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata) and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

This means that basically Facebook can now use your Instagram photos, location tags, username and any other associated data in ad campaigns paid for by Facebook’s advertising partners or other 3rd parties. Your data may now become an ad, and certainly you won’t know about this, be asked permission, or receive any financial compensation.

In addition:

We may share ‘User Content’ and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data and usage data) with businesses that are legally part of the same group of companies that Instagram is part of…

Similar to the previous clause, this  basically means all your Instagram data is shared with Facebook’s ad partners to allow for increased targeting of ads.

Then my favourite:

You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content or commercial communications as such

This is all to be expected. Facebook is an advertising company that uses a social network to increase the value of its product (i.e. you and your data). I think it does somewhat remove some of the inherited joy of using Instagram though, knowing that its purpose for being is no longer to provide a great service, but to monetise your activity.

I can’t see myself using the service for much longer, which is easy for me as I wasn’t a particularly frequent user in the first place. Others will likely not know or care about these changes and will no doubt continue to enjoy using it.

There goes another independent service to one of the ‘big four’ (Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon). Up next, Foursquare…

P.S. If you want to delete your Instagram account (I’m seriously considering this), you can do so here. If you’re looking for an alternative, you could do a lot worse than the just-updated Flickr by Yahoo. Still a free service so there’s probably still an advertising undercurrent, but Yahoo are currently in such a state of recovery that they are going to do everything in their power to look after their users – they can’t afford to do anything else.

Facebook’s NASDAQ Summary

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Here's the overview of Facebook that is found on their profile page on Google Finance:

Facebook, Inc. (Facebook) is engaged in building products to create utility for users, developers, and advertisers. People use Facebook to stay connected with their friends and family, to discover what is going on in the world around them, and to share and express what matters to them to the people they care about. Developers can use the Facebook Platform to build applications and Websites that integrate with Facebook to reach its global network of users and to build personalized and social products. Advertisers can engage with more than 900 million monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook or subsets of its users based on information they have chosen to share with the Company, such as their age, location, gender, or interests. It offers advertisers a combination of reach, relevance, social context and engagement.

For the sake of reading too much into something:

Isn't it interesting how in the first sentence, Facebook lists users, developers and advertisers equally as beneficiaries of its “products” that “create utility”? Apparently we're all in a big ol' Circle of Life, each equally reliant on each other and doing so via Facebook's “utility”-creating products.

This just seems a bit odd to me – Facebook wouldn't exist without its users and the core functionality of social sharing. 3rd party developers and advertisers are relatively new to the party; necessary evils in order to allow Facebook to demonstrate a sound business model, but they've been given equal prominence in the description above as if there's some open and happy relationship between, for example, users and advertisers on Facebook.

Another random spot: users and developers get one sentence each, whereas advertisers get two. That's double!

In the words of Marco Arment, “Everyone has their bullshit, you just have to decide whose you're willing to tolerate”.

 

Facebook ignores majority vote and changes privacy policy anyway

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As reported here by The Register, Facebook are updating their “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” (SRR) and Data Use Policy.

Facebook has 900 million users and stated that 30%, or 270 million, people would need to vote on the proposed changes in order to for the votes to count, otherwise they results would be used in an ‘advisory’ capacity (i.e. ignored).

In reality, 342,632 people (0.038% of all users) voted. However, 297,833 voted against the changes - 87% of all who voted. That’s a majority in anyone’s book but Facebook have chosen to ignore them.

What bothers me is:

  1. In the brief time I’ve spent looking, I can’t find anywhere that clearly and concisely explains the proposed changes.
  2. Facebook have failed to say how many people knew about the proposed changes. How can you base actions on a percent of all users voting when you know full well that a significant portion of them would probably not see the ads for the voting in the first place (myself included)?

It seems to me that Facebook fully intended to make these changes and were only doing a vote to appease the authorities/regulators (The Register article states the original statement received over 7,000 comments which forces them to go to a public vote).

They must have known that there was no chance 30% of all their users were going to vote.

Anyway, read the announcement by Facebook for yourself and see what you think.

The Double-Edged Sword of Employer Prying

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Really great read from Reginald Braithwaite, proposing a fake resignation letter dealing with the inherent problems with employers prying on your social network activity:

This time, I found myself talking to a young man fresh out of University about a development position. After allowing me to surf his Facebook, he asked me how I felt about parenting. As a parent, it was easy to say I liked the idea. Then he dropped the bombshell.

His partner was expecting, and shortly after being hired he would be taking six months of parental leave as required by Ontario law. I told him that he should not have discussed this matter with me. “Oh normally I wouldn’t, but since you’re looking through my Facebook, you know that already. Now of course, you would never refuse to hire someone because they plan to exercise their legal right to parental leave, would you?

I hadn’t thought of it like that.

via mpanzarino

Why I Am Afraid Of Klout

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I recently discovered Klout, a service that scores you based on your social media interactions. At first, I was impressed by a service that tied in so many social media services in one place to give you an impression of your online interactions.

But soon the sinister reality started to dawn on me, and it actually helped put a few things in perspective.

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Zynga and zCloud: Steam For The Web

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You’ve probably heard of Zynga, or at least one of their products. They are the proud creators of Farmville, once the 3rd most popular game on facebook, with over 200 million monthly active users of their freemium games. In December 2011 they went public, raising about $1bn.

It seems like a story of success, but a few things indicate that Zynga are in the process of diversifying both their products and their revenue streams.

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Nokia Lumia 800: First Impressions from an iPhone fan(boy?)

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My work have just given me a Nokia Lumia 800, here is what I think so far…

First impressions

First-off, as I’m sure many have said before me, this is a really nice looking phone. It is well designed, feels solid and sturdy in your hand, and reminds me of Nokia in their heyday; making indestructible yet stylish mobile phones. It also is original – it doesn’t resemble an iPhone! It has a mix of lines and curves, usually all in contrast to where the iPhone’s lines and curves are, and it makes a refreshing change from other iPhone competitors that seem to take more than an inspiration from it.

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Netflix appears to access your Facebook details without authorisation

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Upon opening the Netflix UK website to sign up for the 1 month free trial, I see this:

Note that I had not yet logged in via Facebook at this point, but Netflix was already showing me my Facebook friends who are already using Netflix. My question is, how? Surely a website can’t just access your Facebook data without authorisation, and if it can, what else is it able to access?

A quick test showed that when signing out of Facebook, the Netflix page stopped giving me personalised results, but I checked the Facebook App Security page and Netflix was not listed, i.e. I had not previously authorised it in some capacity. This was a website I had never provided any information to before that was accessing my Facebook details.

I’m pretty dubious about this and would love to understand what is going on here.

Google+ Search Controversy – A Beginner’s Guide

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Google are now integrating Google+ profiles into their search results. This has caused a large amount of controversy because they are giving their own social network prominence and not including Twitter or Facebook results. This is being regarded as potentially anti-competitive; that they are using a legal competitive advantage in one market (search) to leverage an advantage in another (social networks). Google have then proceeded the fuel the fire by being completely disingenuous about their actions.

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