Timeo Facebook Et Dona Ferentes
Which can be loosely translated as “I fear Facebook even if it brings gifts”. My friends have noticed that for quite some time I’ve stopped updating my Facebook status, or even interacting with the site altogether. The reason is simple. I don’t trust them.
A short time ago, Facebook introduced a new feature called Beacon that lets websites send status to your mini-feed. It immediately drew a lot of criticism because of its invasion to privacy, to the point that many people figured out ways to block it. Facebook’s CEO apologized for it today and made beacon opt-out.
Now, I was going to write a detailed article about why this bothers me and how insincere the apology sounded, but our good old friend Fake Steve Jobs did a much better job in this blog post. Money quote:
These guys are like Google, only their slogan isn’t “Don’t be evil” — it’s “Don’t get caught.”
And later:
The smarmy fake apology is not at all reassuring and seems to have been written by PR people who were trying to imitate a 23-year-old kid who’s speaking from the heart and trying to sound all sheepish and aw-shucks — except the flacks can’t do it because they’re as insincere and stage-managed as as the Facebook guys. Plus, let’s face it, the flacks are getting paid in Facebook equity, right?
I couldn’t have said it better myself. You should go read the whole post.