With all the talk about Facebook planning to go public, one cannot ignore an economic dilemma or moral hazard is slowly coming to the forefront i.e. the commercialization of private data verses the right of individual privacy.
This needs to be addressed as even Facebook may face end up being broken up by the government over its monopoly over the sheer amount of personal information about its citizens. Indeed, information disclosure as mandated by commercial needs or government concerns may cause the evolution of Facebook in different ways.
In his Daily Beast article, David Kirkpatrick, explains that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeks to delay an IPO as long as legally and humanly possible via the Goldman investment. He believes that with an IPO, Zuckerberg worries about losing control of the company, its culture changing and being exposed to competitors, regulators and potentially hostile or inquisitive others.
The US Congress is currently looking into regulating consumer privacy in an attempt to balance consumer interests and commercial needs. But it currently lacks a proper understanding and definition of data security, as well as how far it should go.
The revelation of the sheer amount of personal data on citizens of different countries and Facebook’s plans on using it will also be seen as a national security risk to many countries. Just take the case of the Middle East ban on Blackberry services for hosting its citizens’ personal data offshore based on national security concerns.
However, the pendulum for even greater disclosure of personal data may also swing in Facebook’s favor. With the social graphing of people’s interests for different topics of interests, Facebook could move into other relationship-based commercial engagements. One area is medical.
Most of the time, people search or research about illnesses, treatments and medicines. Social graphing can allow people to share or map out the course of their illnesses and treatments from a patient’s perspective.
People can also map out their relationships to their family, relatives and even ancestors to build a picture of how hereditary diseases are transmitted over time. This area will allow the creation of a partially sponsored commercial space where drug companies can interact with potential patients, with inputs from medical practitioners and existing patients on their experiences with medicine.
One other area will be engagements based on religious needs and commerce. People interacting in the same religious context tend to have close affiliations in terms of lifestyle tastes and needs. Dissemination of religion-driven content and services can swiftly take shape with the setting up of a proper ecommerce model.
What else can happen to social networks like Facebook? For one thing, they can get replaced in the future. They may be made redundant by the digitization of more aspects of a person’s life. For example, people in the future may interface with the web whenever and wherever they want through their personal belongings, clothes and ID cards.
References:
Facebook’s 50 billion Goldman goldmine don’t expect an IPO
Is your online presence property or a person
Ping a social networking garment
About the Author:
Name: Kestrel Lee
Bio:
Kestrel has led several award winning digital-led campaigns by combining creativity with the best search and social media strategies.
Location: Singapore
Big addict with this blog, a variety of your blog posts have really helped me out. Looking towards up-dates!