Everyone is up in arms over the leaking of 87 million Facebook users data to the dark web. Many have vowed to leave Facebook (or already have). Others can’t bear the thought of isolating themselves from the social interaction, the neighborhood that is Facebook. Both sides of the fence have valid points. But what really does the latest Facebook breach mean and how did it happen?
We all have our favorite applications inside of Facebook that we enjoy interacting with. Who hasn’t played Word With Friends or Candy Crush? Maybe it’s the polls that tell what celebrity you most look like. Or the online petitions we sign to support a passionate cause. Ah yes, what great distraction from our day to day lives! But here’s the reality.
Reality Check #1 – All these apps are created by third party software developers. NOT Facebook. The application developers are independent of Facebook. They develop cool, useful and entertaining software for you to use for free. Why? Because they just have a passion for making your life better? Probably not. Who takes the time and resources to build an app without some gain in mind? Maybe it’s to gain attention to their skills so they get hired by a larger firm. Or they hope to monetize their app with premium, paid features. There is always a motive involved – the old WIIFM – “what’s in it for me”.
Reality Check #2 – You agree to their terms and conditions when you choose to use the application. Yep, in exchange for the thrill of showcasing your vocabulary expertise in Words with Friends, you agree to allow the developers to see your profile and all the likes, interests and other insights into yourself. What they do with that data is up to them. Facebook does say they can’t sell that data. But how diligently that was policed in the past is a question.
Reality Check #3 – Up until 2015, not only did third party apps have access to the user’s data, but by default, the personal information of all their friends as well, regardless of whether they were using the app or not. Way back in 2010, I was teaching my Ninja Marketing Dojo students to turn off that option in their privacy settings. It was a simple opt-out choice but every time I presented this in workshops and seminars, almost no one knew about it or had opted to not allow apps from friends to access their profiles.
The Cambridge Analytica breach affected 87 million users, of which only 270,000 were users that actually took the quiz that resulted in the breach. The rest of the 87 million were friends of those 270,000 users – those that had not opted out of allowing apps from friends to access their profile. (As a result, none of my student’s profiles were included in the breach, since they has all opted out.)
As a follow up, Facebook changed their privacy settings over 2 years ago to not make friends profiles accessible to apps. As I write this article, news has just broken that Cambridge Analytica is shutting down and filing bankruptcy as a result of the breach. Facebook is continuing to address privacy policies and announced today they were building a “Clear All History” as well as other attempts at recovering their users trust. The jury is still out whether their efforts are too little, too late.
Gary Wagnon is the owner of 800biz Ninja Marketing and the creator of the Ninja Marketing Dojo, both of which focus on helping businesses improve their search engine ranking, increase their brand awareness and convert more browsers to buyers.