Facebook, Have They Gone Too Far?

Some of you may or may not be aware that Facebook are planning to make yet even more changes. The biggest update we can expect to see?

Facebook Time Line.

Yes that’s right, Facebook wants its users to publish their life stories and key events on the site as well as give them a comprehensive data plan of your Facebook history, including being able to see who you have ever been friends with, when and if they un-friended you.

What do the public think of this?

They hate it. In fact, 56% of Facebook users who knew this change was coming, dislike the idea completely. There may a few reasons as to why this change is frowned upon. First, there is absolutely no reason for Facebook to know your life history, in fact, no social website or website in general, needs to know every single thing about you. It almost feels like they are invading ones personal space and security Secondly, there may be concerns over data protection and privacy. Lets Face it, Facebook has a frankly awful privacy history. It’s too complicated to understand, they update it so your settings change and suddenly people can see your data and comment on it. If they can’t get it right over things as simple as status updates and photos, can they be trusted to get it right when you have your life story filed away on there?

Why Are They Doing This?

Advertising. With a much more elaborate and accurate history of a users likes, dislikes and lifestyle, they will be able to send the right types of advertising directly to their pages and thus, in theory, increase their relationships with businesses who wish to advertise with them. It’s arguably a money making scheme over anything else. Another reason people don’t like the idea. Why should they partake in sharing their stories just so a company could make money?

Hopefully they will allow a way to opt out or just ignore the feeds and so people who feel uncomfortable can just stay away from it. It does feel cheeky to be asking people to share that sort of data online on a network. This will be one development that will be exciting to watch and see what happens when they do finally role this out. Maybe the public will be pleasantly surprised and embrace it but they may also hate it. I’ll be watching this space…

Articles mentioned in this post:http://mashable.com/2011/10/18/facebook-users-dislike-changes/

Source Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oemebamo