I guess everyone who happens to stumble on this blog knows what Facebook is, who owns it (it’s Mark Zuckerberg, in case you don’t know) and how awesome it is. Facebook is currently one of the most popular social networking sites with around 500 million users up to July 2010. However, for the past year, Facebook has faced some controversy, from being blocked in several countries to protests due to its terms of service regarding intellectual property (read here) and for the usage of your profile to advertise items or services. (Hey, I bet 80% of you just click on the ‘I agree’ button without reading the terms of service)
I personally think that Facebook is great and useful, but after exploring more about the ways that they gain profits I come to a conclusion that in some areas, Facebook crosses the boundary of ethics such as privacy and intellectual properties. The one thing that disturbs me the most is the issue of intellectual properties, and that’s because I store at least 6,000 pictures in around 100 different albums, and each one of these pictures are now claimed to be Facebook’s, which means that if I use the same picture I uploaded to advertise something else without asking permission from Facebook, they have the right to sue me, because that picture is theirs now. This is a dilemma for the users since one way to socialize with others is through pictures of events and memories that they share. From a user’s perspective, I disagree on this, however since we use Facebook for free, we can’t really protest against them. However,probably on Facebook’s side they’re trying to make this as an excuse — that because the services they offer are free, they deserve to use some of our data to gain profits. So, what do you think? Is it ethical for companies to use client’s data because the client use their services for free?
September 15, 2010