the intersection of life and grace

You may have heard that Facebook is improving things again. This time, it isn’t a re-design of your home page; it’s a re-design of your privacy.  I’m not an expert, and I’m certainly not shy about sharing who I am and what I’m about, but I think, this time, Facebook has it wrong.  Why? Two reasons:

1. Facebook didn’t give users an option to protect their information – it’s connect on their terms or delete at least some of your information.
2. Facebook didn’t make a key new change, called “Instant Personalization”, an opt-in feature. Meaning, unless you change the setting yourself, your profile information is available to sites outside Facebook in order to allow them to serve you their own content based on your interests (as presented on Facebook by your likes, connections, personal data, etc.).

In the latest version, Facebook is helping us be more social by sharing the information we each added to our “Info” tab fields with others who have the same information. You may have no objection to this because you added that information to share with your Facebook Friends. It is the premise behind social networking, after all, isn’t it? Find people with whom we have common interests and get to know one another. I think Facebook’s intention is to enhance the social experience, and I agree there may be networking value there but I don’t want it forced on me.

With this update, Facebook is making connections for us by connecting everyone who lists a band, a movie, a book, a school, a town, a workplace, and so on, to one another by default.  Not as a Friend, but through Pages. If it hasn’t happened yet, you’ll likely soon be greeted with a request to convert your profile. It isn’t optional, but you can choose with which pages you’d like to connect. Be aware, the ones you choose to omit with have their corresponding entry deleted from your profile. In addition, there are instances wherein community pages for an entry will be created, but the concept isn’t fully fleshed out. Read Facebook’s description of these connections here.

For example, my “Work” entry stated I’m the owner of Verbitude, which is my DBA name for my writing, coaching and speaking work. When Facebook connected me based on the word Verbitude, it made me wonder, since I concocted it a while back and Google returned 0 results for it at the time.  There are no other employees, so I clicked to find out what happened. The connection? A spoken word and slam poetry event. Really, Facebook, you couldn’t have done better with that? Fun with keywords 101.

Instant Personalization could  seem like a natural extension of the existing “Facebook Connect” feature which allows websites outside Facebook to let you log-in to their site to comment, for example, without creating a site-specific username.  However, Facebook is now making specific sites privy to your information and interactions unless you opt out. There are only a few now, but I expect that to increase since it has huge marketing upside. I don’t mind a website technology that uses my information wisely. I do mind my information being given away without my choosing to do so.

What did I do? I allowed most of my information to be deleted, and will add back those details as I better understand how that works “in everyday use”. It needed updating anyway, most of that info has been there since I joined the site years ago.

There is a lot about the internet many people don’t understand; in my opinion, these changes take advantage of that. My recommendation? Don’t connect online beyond your understanding and comfort level. Take some time to read Facebook’s Terms of Service (you had to agree to them to join, but they change and maybe you didn’t read them in the first place). After that, go to your Facebook account menu, click on privacy, and go through each section to ensure that your information is being used and displayed in a manner you choose.

Following months of deliberation by the Federal Trade Commission and rumors throughout the social media marketing world, the FTC this week released it’s “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” to much buzz.  And, a little panic, I think, for bloggers, twitterers and facebookers who like to talk about their favorite goods and services, wondering what this all might mean for them.

It’s an 81-page document, in rather complex legal-governmental language.  You can read it by clicking here if you like [opens PDF document in a new window].

First, because I’ve fielded a few questions about this from the reviewers I work with on content for clients, I want to define what the new regulations say about bloggers – as I understand it. Disclaimer:  I’m not a lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, and if I learn something new about it, I’ll update this post.

Disclosure

If a company gives you product or money or any other kind of award or compensation in return for your posting about them or their product on your blog, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social networking site, you (the blogger) need to say so clearly.  The consequence for not doing so includes potentially hefty fines, but the report does not delineate what to expect for certain infractions, nor how specifically it will be enforced.

Now, if you review books, resources or music for another outlet, such as YMX, and repost your work on your blog with link attribution (as that site has permitted), you need only be clear that you were given the resource to review for that outlet.  It is pretty clear that product is given to media outlets to review, and you’re (in the case of YMX) reprinting with permission with link attribution.  If you link to your work on another commercial site from your  personal Twitter/Facebook, etc, it seems clear to me that you got something in return for the work (product or  some other consideration).

If you are an affiliate marketer – say for amazon, or referral link prizes, and the like – you need to say so under these new rules.  If you make money on it, you need to say so more clearly than ever.  Here is a good overview of the new guidelines from the corporate marketing point of view.

About this blog

Most reviews on this blog are reprints of my work for hire, primarily at YS/YMX. Those include links back to the original publication page.

A few times publishers or companies have given me books to review, or something to give away. While it was clear enough at the time, I will be more specific about that going forward.  I have never been paid cash for any post on this blog, or anything I’ve posted on my personal social networking accounts.  I intend to add a disclosure page to this blog to acknowledge affiliate relationships so there is no confusion.

All very formal, but I have no problem disclosing this if it prevents confusion on the part of others. Clarity is good, and assuring readers that my thoughts and opinions are my own even if I got a free book is something I’m happy to do.  It’s necessary to help people who research purchases on the internet tell the difference between advertising and customer opinion, because the line had become blurry. Ethics are important.

Now, if we could just get the same kind of clear public disclosure from politicians and lobbyists, I’d be thrilled.