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Facebook Privacy: California, Canada Concerned

Written on August 18, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: Advertising, book, marketing

Facebook is gearing up to face off with the government again—this time over privacy concerns in two different venues: the California courts and a Canadian commission.

In California, five users are suing Facebook for disclosing their information to third parties for commercial purposes, without the users’ permission. The plaintiffs are two children under the age of 13 (who, BTW, aren’t allowed to use the site according to the TOS), a user of the “original Facebook,” a model/actress and a photographer. They argue that Facebook violated California consumer privacy laws. They’re looking for a trial, damages and fees. Facebook, naturally, says they “see no merit to this suit and . . . plan to fight it.”

Meanwhile, in Canada (as all good adventures begin!) . . . Facebook is facing scrutiny from Privacy Commissioner Julie Stoddard. Stoddard says Facebook’s privacy policy violates Canadian privacy laws.

In a complaint from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), there are potential problems with Facebook’s practices including: collecting users’ date of birth, the default privacy settings, advertising, third-party apps, future uses of personal info, collecting personal info from sites other than Facebook, deactivating/deleting accounts and the accounts of dead users, non-users’ personal info, mobile usage, account monitoring for suspicious activity and potential deception and misrepresentation.

So, basically, everything.

The Privacy Commission notified Facebook with a 30-deadline thirty days ago today—so Facebook is supposed to respond today. The commission’s recommendations included “clarifying Facebook’s privacy policies, making it easier for users to remove their profiles and curbing the amount of personal information the site collects from its members,” with special concerns about third party apps. Facebook is supposed to reply with a proposal and time line for change.

What do you think? Will Facebook change its policies (willingly or unwillingly), or will they skate past with a song-and-dance explanation for regulators?

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Facebook Privacy: California, Canada Concerned

Life Before Bing: Google Most Satisfying

Written on August 18, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

In a survey conducted before Bing launched, Google was the most satisfying search engine, according to Search Engine Land. The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business report, conducted by the University of Michigan, is funded by Foresee Results.

Out of a perfect 100, Google scored 86 on the satisfaction index, scored on several criteria about the search experience. Interestingly, that’s identical to its score last year. In fact, none of the three major search engines changed YOY—Yahoo held steady at 77 and MSN stayed at 75.

From 2006 to 2007, Google fell a little in satisfaction (falling behind Yahoo, even). But the ACSI says they foreshadow (or reflect?) trends in usage:

[The ACSI] is a predictor of future success on both the micro and macro level. Google’s huge 10 point jump in satisfaction from 2007 to 2008 preceded a 7% increase in search market share from 2008 to 2009. Satisfaction with Yahoo, on the other hand, dropped 2.5% from 2007 to 2008, preceding a 17.5% decrease in search market share and a 5% drop in portal market share.

Over at SEL, Greg Sterling accurately points out that satisfaction isn’t correlated with search engine share. Also important to note is that brand perception and brand loyalty can also really affect searchers’ perceptions of an engine. Remember back in 2007 when a study showed that people chose Google and Yahoo as the most relevant SERPs—even when the results were exactly the same and the logo was the only thing that changed?

What do you think? Are people really more satisfied by Google, or are we all just programmed to think that way? Where do you think Bing will fall next year?

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Life Before Bing: Google Most Satisfying

Musician Continues to Teach United Airlines a Reputation Management Lesson

Written on August 18, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

It seems Dave Carroll is not done teaching United Airlines a lesson or two on the consequences of poor customer service. As a follow-up to his viral hit United Breaks Guitars, Carroll has released a new video:

Really, the damage was done with the posting of the first video and United has learned enough from this lesson. As United Airlines’ Barbara Higgins told Christopher Elliott:

We understand the power of social media and the implications it has on our reputation, and realize it has a role in our communicating to our guests and the public at large. We also put the highest priority on making things right directly with our customer in the most helpful, meaningful and immediate manner, and most often that means picking up the phone and calling them, rather than using social media to talk to everyone about one person’s personal travel experience. So, like most things, it’s a combination of ways to connect to our guests.

The follow-up doesn’t teach us, or United, any new lessons, but obviously Carroll’s not going to give up his 15-minutes of fame so quickly.

(Hat-tip @GoVisitHawaii)

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Musician Continues to Teach United Airlines a Reputation Management Lesson

If Google’s Free WiFi Is So Successful, Why Hasn’t It Spread Nationally?

Written on August 18, 2009 by admin

Filed Under: marketing

Can you believe it’s been 3 years since Google first offered free WiFi to Mountain View, CA residents? I remember thinking, “It won’t be long before Google offers free WiFi all around the country!”

I’m still waiting.

Maybe I should move to Mountain View, because it appears the Google-sponsored free WiFi is a roaring success–with 19,000 users and 600 gigabytes of data transferred each day. Not bad for a coverage area of just 12 square miles.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Google has seen a steady increase in the number of handheld devices accessing its WiFi hotspot:

“We continue to experience extremely high demand – both in terms of users and bandwidth,” said Karl Garcia at Google, who leads the Google WiFi project. “We’ve seen the iPhone and other Wi-Fi enabled handheld devices as significant drivers of the high demand we see. Currently nearly a quarter of all devices that connect to our network are handhelds, compared to almost none when we launched the network,” said Garcia.

Tropos–the company behind hardware–is not shy in bragging about the success of Google’s WiFi network, but I have a question. If it’s so darn successful, why, in three years of existence, has it not spread to other parts of the country?

I want free WiFi in Raleigh, NC…oh, and your city too!

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If Google’s Free WiFi Is So Successful, Why Hasn’t It Spread Nationally?