Case Studies

Case Study #1 Facebook and Instagram: Privacy Challenges

Facebook—along with Instagram, the photo-sharing site that the company purchased in 2012—struggles with thorny privacy and ownership issues (Figure 1-1). The site’s loyal users rely on it to share news, photos, videos, and special moments with their friendship networks, but their personal information and preferences can leak out in ways they often don’t understand.

Figure 1-1 Facebook Statistics

Data drawn from Global Web Index. (2016). Facebook Profile Report. London, UK http://www.globalwebindex.net, accessed July 15, 2016.

Facebook’s Privacy Policies: A Moving Target

Facebook frequently changes its privacy policies, and every tweak can either reassure users that their data is safe or cause further alarm. In 2005, when the site was called “Thefacebook,” the policy was very simple: No personal information that you submit will be available to any user of the website who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings. Years later, the privacy policy stretches to thousands of words in legalese. Lawyers write much of this text, using language they hope will satisfy regulators and privacy advocates but that often confounds users.

One change that users called “creepy” happened in 2007, when Facebook launched a service that could track people’s actions on third-party websites and broadcast that information to their Facebook friends. Users objected to this lack of control, and Facebook soon dropped the practice. In 2010, the company decided to have the user’s privacy account settings default to “everyone,” so that anyone could view the information unless the user proactively altered the privacy settings to limit access to friends. After privacy advocates protested, Facebook reversed course and changed the default to more restrictive settings.

The Facebook Places service, launched in 2010, raises additional concerns about privacy. This service allows you to “check in” so others can see your current location on a map. Facebook defaulted the setting to “friends only,” having learned from experience that a default to “everyone” would trigger objections. The service also offers you the option to broadcast your location to other users who happen to be nearby but are not in your friends network; however, that was prudently disabled by default.

Just after Facebook purchased Instagram in 2012, the company promptly announced a change in Instagram’s privacy and ownership policies to take effect in 2013. According to the new policy, Facebook claimed a perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos, allowing it to sell the photos to companies for advertising purposes. Imagine for a moment how Instagram might sell your vacation photos to the hotel where you stayed to use in its ads without paying you or even notifying you. Outraged Instagram users brought on an online firestorm, and Facebook backed off some of the language. The company still claimed the right to associate sponsored ads with users’ photos, though.Working together as a team, prepare an email analyzing ethical privacy trends, confidentiality, and privacy regulations based on the information in the Case Study for the employees in the Vampire Legends organization from Week 1. Consider the following questions as you create your email: