Calm Down About Facebook

Facebook has been in the news alot over the last few weeks. All because a researcher used the Facebook API to scrape data from Facebook users and their friends and then sold that info to an analytics firm that worked with political campaigns.

Somehow this has morphed in a privacy debate because developers with access to the Facebook API cannot take what they want from Facebook and sell it to anyone they want.

So, as I watch Congressional hearings, I have to laugh. This is not about privacy; it's about the money.

With 2 billion users who gladly tell Facebook their favorite TV shows, movies, clothing brands, how they spend their time, who their friends are, who they voted for, what political movements they support, the color of their eyes, whether they wear glasses and on and on, Facebook has every bit of information needed to figure out what you might want to buy or do.

The fact that Facebook has not fully exploited this (to my knowledge) is somewhat mysterious.

It's uniquely qualified to, for example, identify the 100 people in Northern Arkansas who want a pack of oversized silver balloons. With this type of information arsenal, Facebook should theoretically be able to obliterate the TV networks and the major newspapers and steal their advertising dollars.

There are ways it can go after Google and Bing, too. Growth for Facebook does not mean getting more users—it has enough. Growth mean finding new ways to target advertising and develop paid services.

So...why all the complaining about privacy? This notion is a mainstream media creation developed as a means to kill the monster. Facebook executives are then in a bind and have to apologize. Otherwise they'd seem uncaring and cavalier about privacy. We have Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg saying they are sorry and it won't happen again, unable to explain why it happened in the first place.

Now Congress is raking Facebook over the coals. Zuckerberg, the visionary of the whole scheme, hemmed and hawed and apologize as best he could on Tuesday before the Senate. He'll appear before the House today for another opportunity to say something stupid that will dominate the news for a couple of weeks.

There is absolutely zero reason Facebook should be saying anything to Congress. I've never heard a good reason to show up. I'd love to hear testimony like this:

REPRESENTATIVE: So Mr. Zuckerberg, do you have any way that people can protect their privacy when using Facebook?

ZUCKERBERG: Protect it? They are the ones putting private information on the site. They are voluntarily doing it. We do not force them. We do not trick them.

REPRESENTATIVE: Yes, but do they know this information can be captured and exploited by a third party?

ZUCKERBERG: Hey, do you think we want a third party taking the data of all these people and exploiting it so they can make money without cutting us in? Hell, no. We already put a stop to that. We established this system for our benefit not theirs.

REPRESENTATIVE: So then it is okay for you to violate users' privacy?

ZUCKERBERG: Yes, it is. They said so when they signed up. They post the fact that they are five foot two and we tell them that they might want to shop at Macy's in the petite section. So what? This is why they use the site in the first place – to connect with friends and find useful information. It's not as if we are planting bugs in their homes, like Amazon.

REPRESENTATIVE: So why do you think we are having this hearing?

ZUCKERBERG: Because the Washington Post and other skittish media companies kept pushing you to. So you might greenlight some stupid legislation to prevent our users from using the site the way they want. The obvious goal is to keep us from making any money. To make yourselves seem like you are helping the consumer. It's all a load of bull.

This would be an honest exchange that can only be imagined since it will never occur. Big media is indeed behind a lot of the complaining and the reasons are clear, at least to me. Facebook is a threat to their bottom lines.

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