Saving Face

Understandably so,given the fact that May 31 was actually designated as Quit Facebook Day,the social networking site has literally begun rethinking its approach to counter the same. However the fact that about 0.006 percent of the total users across the globe,and around 2 percent users in America quit the social networking site yesterday goes to show that the problems that the site developers had to address were not exactly miniscule. At issue are changes to the site that allow select external Web sites to automatically log your activity and share it with your friends. For example,Pandora will share your listening habits,and the only way to stop it is through a multistage step-opt-out process. A poll by U.K.-based security firm Sophos found that 30 percent of its 1588 respondents will “probably” quit Facebook due to privacy concerns,and 30 percent are “highly likely” to do so. Another 16 percent have quit already.

It were reasons like these that groups like “Millions Against Facebook’s Privacy Policies and Layout Redesign,” which has over 2 million members on Facebook itself,and even the website by Matthew Milan and Joseph Dee titled Quitfacebookday.com already has over 34000 members pledging to quit the same. Even though the numebrs might not have been substantial as far as the actual quitters were concerned this was foodfor thought,for the developers. However not all believe in the idea of quitting the website,and technology analysts in the UK and the US compare it to be as difficult as quitting smoking. 25-year-old,software developer Ajinkya Bhosale,who works with a city based IT firm,says,“I will not be quitting the social networking site anytime soon because all my friends are here,and it doesn’t make any sense to ask them to quit and log on to other sites,like MySpace,or the open source Diaspora.”

Zuckerberg,however announced that the site will now be coming out with new controls to make navigation easier. He also added saying that even though the settings will be made simpler,it will take some time for the same to be implemented. And while the debate over the privacy settings is still open to debate,even over 2 million angry voices will not be able to convince the 500 million plus users,to quit the popular networking site. Not unless someone in a college dorm comes up with a social networking site that can eat into the popularity of the Facebook behemoth.

Facebook factfile
* Fortune reported that Facebook gained 10 million users since the network announced the privacy changes.
* In the past even Google has come under fire for collecting information from unsecured wireless networks for the Google mapping feature called Street View.
* Facebook has had an estimated revenue of around five hundred to six hundred fifty million dollars. The money came in mainly from selling ads aimed at users based on what they posted on Facebook.
* To change the settings one needs to go on the applications page where one can click to see the applications that are being used. Then go into this section of the settings,at the top of the page under the applications icons,and click “Turn off all platform applications” and with one click you can opt out of applications and the entire Facebook platform.
* Facebook users,on average,have 130 friends,that calculates to 16,900 people who can see a person’s information with this setting,and this is not calculating the shared friends within various groups.