Why Facebook is selling you out -- and won't stop
My buddy Robert X. Cringely wonders if Facebook is evil or merely incompetent. That's an easy one: both -- not to mention arrogant and greedy. But how surprising is that? Facebook is in business to make money, whether it's from advertising or the increasingly attractive treasure trove of third-party apps. Never mind that "don't be evil" stuff. Mrs. Zuckerberg's boy Mark wants to be a billionaire for real -- not just on paper.
You guys out there in cyber ville know all that. But I guess I have to remind you of something once said by the late Jimmy Doohan in his role as Scotty on "Star Trek": "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Facebook has fooled us not just once, but over and over again, blithely exposing users' private information to any advertiser or creep who happens to get interested. It's a tired drama. The company messes up, it gets caught, the media freaks out, the company apologizes. Then the cycle starts all over, as it did this week when the Wall Street Journal learned that it's not just Facebook harvesting personal data -- Facebook's platform developers are in on it as well. That data is being shared with advertisers and Internet tracking companies, whether or not users have opted for privacy.
