Facebook User’s Privacy

I was reading Alexandar Qu’s blogs and one of his posts caught my attention. Facebook would now like to track the hovering and movement of an individual’s mouse while on the website. One problem with this is the mountain of information that has to be collected and effectively stored in order to create a Management Information System. Although this may be useful for Facebook, is it ethical to collect information without explicit consent? If the user community sees this as unethical, Facebook will experience backlash. Users will look for alternatives to Facebook or try and pollute the data by randomly moving the mouse. In this case, losing users would be an external threat to the company and the invasion of privacy would be an internal weakness for Facebook. On the other hand, if people accept this as ethical, then the storage of mass amount of data and building a system for analysis will take extensive resources. This will cause Facebook to take their eye off improving and enhancing features of Facebook which will be a loss to users. These individuals may look for alternatives that have better options. Either way, it is a loss for Facebook.

 

Article 1: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/technology/personaltech/ftc-looking-into-facebook-privacy-policy.html?ref=business&_r=1&

Atricle 2: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/30/facebook-considers-tracking-mouse-cursors-and-screen-views/

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