Facebook, and their data harvesting tactics are again coming under scrutiny. It’s essentially the topic that will not go away of 2018. In fact, I think we can declare 2018 the year a spotlight focused in on companies who harvest data on users as a fundamental part of their business model.
This is a challenging topic, because of the lack of clarity on how much personal data Facebook and their APIs have allowed third parties to access. Each report seems to insinuate Facebook’s platform tactics allowed third parties with access to more data than consumers might be comfortable with. The reality, as I see it, is whether or not Facebook does indeed allow third parties more data than they should, the overall public perception is what is at stake. If consumers feel their privacy has been violated, regardless of whether it has or not, then Facebook has broken consumer trust. Trust takes years to gain and a minute to break.
That being said, there are a few specific points to flesh out related to this topic. First, I want to focus on what our research revealed about the way consumers think about this topic of privacy.
Privacy Definition as a Baseline
In a series of research studies we conducted, one goal was to establish a baseline of how consumers define privacy. Below is a chart from one of our presentations on the subject.
As you can see, the distinct understanding of consumers related to when a company says they keep their data private is that said company does not give their data to third parties. The privacy understanding has everything to do with a comfort level that the company will keep, and use, any personal data given solely for first party purposes. While a key part of this debate is whether or not Facebook SOLD that data, the truth of the recent reports is that the Facebook platform APIs allowed third parties more access to Facebook users personal data. This by definition of how consumers understand and expect a level of privacy, means that Facebook has violated their privacy in the eyes of the consumer.
We can see this playing out in public sentiment. Consumers feel their privacy has been violated and are making behavioral changes with how they use social media. I think this point is the one that warrants more thought. Facebook is not at risk of a mass exodus of users. They are, however, at risk of having a sweeping change in their user’s behavior that does not necessarily help theirs or their advertisers business model objectives.
Should Consumers Even Have Expected Privacy From Facebook?
Here we move to an interesting part of the debate around Facebook and privacy. What should consumers have expected from Facebook? Should they even expect privacy or in their mind is Facebook something else? Here we have a few additional insights from our research that are helpful.
We asked consumers in what areas of their digital lives privacy matters to them. Only 20% said privacy mattered to them when it comes to social media. Things like email and a range of cloud services all were much higher in terms of areas where consumers prioritize privacy. What’s more, is we asked consumers to rank all the big tech companies in order of those they trust most and those they trust least with their privacy. Social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat heavily weighted the scale of distrust. Which tells us consumers did not have much faith in Facebook from a privacy standpoint, to begin with.
In light of that distrust, and in light of their understanding that Facebook is free and they will see ads, most still continue to use the service. Granted there is an emergence of a behavior change but, given consumers view social media services differently, and may not expect as much privacy from them, they will continue to use Facebook and other services.
Where the conversation starts to get interesting to me is when we dig into how consumers think about social media services, and thus, how that understanding could lead to some personal rights around personal data.
Social Media as Public Forum
A key insight derived from our research on this topic is that consumers view social media, and Facebook in particular, as a public forum. Essentially they think about their actions on these platforms in the same way they think about their actions if they were to go out in public. Granted, in the early days of Facebook, I don’t think this was always the case. People would post things, share thing, say things, they may not in a physically public forum. However, it became apparent quickly that anything you post online can be viewed by anyone and thus we saw some distinct changes in how people present themselves publicly on social media.
Given this is how consumers view social media, it is a fair question to ask what personal data Facebook and even third parties should be able to access. I’d argue there could/should be a hard line between things done publicly and things done privately. For example, if I post that I like a certain product or brand, or even click a like of a product or brand, then I’m knowingly doing so in a public forum, and thus that information is fair game. Something I say in a private message, or private group, or even search for, is not and should not be considered public domain and therefore should be off limits from data harvesting. This would at least follow consumers logic of public vs. private behavior in the digital domain and could limit the viewpoint that their privacy is being invaded.
When consumers say something in private, like in a message, or email, or even search for something, they don’t consider this public domain. Therefore when they see an ad or brand message that is eerily related to something they said or did in private, this is when they get weirded out and tend to feel creeped out by the service.
Lastly, and I throw this out as food for thought as I do want to research this specific point more. I get the question a lot about why consumers seem to have an issue with Facebook, or other social media, but not Google. I think this is a great question and part of the answer may be in line with jobs to be done theory. At the root, I think Google’s business model of ads, both relevant and targeted, are actually very much aligned with the reason consumers hire Google. Therefore, I submit, it feels less weird and in some ways much more valuable when you search for something on Google and discover highly relevant and targeted brands, services, products because that is what you want and were hoping for when doing a Google search.
Facebook, on the other hand, has a business model that has nothing to do with the reason consumers hire the service. In our Facebook study, we gave consumers a range of options to why they use Facebook, and the overwhelmingly dominant reason was to keep in touch with friends and family. In Facebook’s case, the business model is not aligned with the job-to-be-done and therefore creates a source of conflict instead of one of value or convenience which is the case with Google.
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