“Facebook has redefined privacy”

I've heard that said a time or two at MR conferences where social media has been high on the agenda.  But recent struggles with consumer groups and the FTC suggest maybe not as much as Facebook would like.  They have a long and not very positive history of trying to leverage (aka make money off) as much of the privacy of their users as possible and when someone figures out what they're up to, they back off.  Once things quiet down, they go right back at it.  The arrogance is astounding.  Quote from CEO Zuckerman: "There's always a challenge of innovating faster than your users understand or accept."   Seems that the problem is us.

Many years ago some colleagues and I edited a book about technology and survey data collection.  I wrote the last chapter which was a sort of fanciful look at how survey data collection would evolve in the future.  At the time I was very taken by a book called being digital by Nicholas Negraponte, who, among other things, was the main driver behind One Laptop per Child.  Negraponte's vision was a world in which everything we do is captured someplace in digital form and I speculated on how that might be leveraged to replace traditional survey research.  My colleagues argued with me that it would never happen because people's natural desire for privacy would put severe limits on access to those data.  It turns out that they probably were more correct than I was.

To see just how big a deal this is becoming go to Google and type "how do I" and look at the top five suggestions.  Chances are one of them will be "how do I delete my facebook account"