Consumer Groups Want To Break Up Facebook's Monopoly

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America is in kind of a pro-monopoly sentiment swing right now so nothing will be done. We'll have to wait a couple more decades for the full harmful effects of monopolies to appear and remind us all why we started to break them up in the first place.
 
Any information you give Facebook should be considered public.

End of Story.

It's on the Internet.

It's not coming off the Internet.

People stay in constant contact with thousands of friends and millions of people they don't know while "something with a farm" all for practically nothing.

Even with the Cambridge Analytica scandal the data they gathered was still data users voluntarily uploaded to the Internet.


The only real solution to the so called Facebook problem would be to transition to a monthly subscription, but that would never happen due to causing too much uproar with the users.

With a monthly subscription Facebook wouldn't need to monetize data or at least monetize data all of its data to stay financially solvent.

There is no free lunch.

You either pay with cash or with your data.

...
...

Go ahead!
Make your choice!
I'm a very busy company and I haven't got all day
It won't cost much
Just your data!

(Couldn't help myself)
 
@DEREKULLO
How can you be that stupid? People don't give away information to Facebook to use it as it wants, FB should not be allowed to pass any personal info to any 3rd party or use it itself for anything but security reason when FB need to identify user. Any misuse of personal data must be strictly prohibited and fined.
 
The idea that "public" means that anyone else can do anything they want with your data if they can rationalize that it's somehow been made "public" needs to end. It IS coming to an end in Europe but as usual the US is behind the curve when it comes to anything that would protect consumers at the cost of big business. IMO breaking up Facebook would be a step in the right direction but I agree that in the US the current policy is WAY to anti-consumer for this to gain any traction.
 
Who do you think is paying for Facebook service to exist? It's not all paid for by advertising and the users sure aren't paying any money for the service.

If the terms of service for a Facebook account inform users Facebook may sell their data, then FB selling that user's data is not a misuse. Opening an account is a voluntary action constituting an agreement between the user and Facebook. Frankly, if users are too self-absorbed to bother learning the terms they are agreeing to, how is that Facebook's fault?
 
@BIGPINKDRAGON286
Understand where you are coming from. The issue is: FB needs to change its policy where there won't be any part of selling user data. In fact FB should start running campaign where it will specify exactly how user data will be used and if user agree with it. So far all was done by forcing new users into agreement or they were not allowed to create account. This is not issue with FB itself. Google will be next...
 
I hadn't really thought about Facebook as a monopoly until now; probably because I haven't used FB in a few years, but after reading this article it made me think about it and they are definitely a monopoly. I can't even think of a competitor for them besides maybe Linkedin, and Linkedin has their own space to work in. There may be others out there, but if you can't even identify them due to lack of exposure/prominence in the marketplace then you have a monopoly on your hands.
 


I can understand how selling your soul and data to Facebook without reading what you were signing could make you ... agitated.

People do give their information to Facebook and they apparently do use that information as they want.

If you don't agree with Facebook's policy ... STOP USING FACEBOOK.

If you stop using Facebook then you break any sort of monetization they can make with your data, at least from the point you stop using Facebook, any data you have already given to them is fair game.

Facebook passes (sells is probably the better word) personal information to 3rd parties in order to make money so you can continue to use their ... whats the word ... innovative service for free (at least without paying cash).


And now for a Destiny's Child quote:

You know I'm not gon' diss you on the Internet
'Cause my mama taught me better than that

 
At that wasted legislator hearing Zuckerberg attended on Capitol Hill a couple months ago he was specifically asked to name competing services to Facebook and he wasn't able to name one single service competing with Facebook. Unfortunately for consumers that hearing was made by mostly 80+ year old senators and representatives who had no idea what they were asking and no idea what to do with the "replies" Zuckerberg made. This is also why Zuckerberg doesn't want to do a similar hearing in the UK as he probably knows he won't get the easy questions and answers there.
 


I'm 99% sure he could / did say at least one of the sites on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

They even have a social network dedicated to Dutch electronic dance music, Partyflock


Surprisingly ... ironically ... funnily ... Facebook isn't even the service with the #1 amount of users.

That would be Google+ at 1.6B versus the 1.28B of Facebook.

Hard to be accused of a monopoly when you aren't #1.

 
derekullo, if he'd mentioned one of those, not owned by Facebook and actually competing with what Facebook is providing, the (natural) follow up question would be how big that service's active market share is compared to Facebook. The number would most likely not even register on a decimal percentage scale. That would automatically put Facebook in some sort of antitrust issues... :)
He would almost certainly get those questions if he does a hearing in the UK. Which is why he doesn't want to do that.
The numbers for Google+ is massively inflated as it's pretty hard to activate an Android device or Gmail account without also getting that Google+ account. No one uses Google+. Even Google themselves are more active on Facebook than their own social network.
 


Well the next one below Facebook is Twitter at about half of Facebook users.

50% is significant decimal percentage.

Followed by Qzone at about 37% the size of Facebook which while focused on Chinese speaking people is still alot of people.

Can't count Instagram 😛

Followed by Tumblr and VK each both at about 1/6 the size of Facebook.
I actually have an account with both of these.

At what point is the user base too small to matter?

1/6 of 1.28B is still over 200 Million people ... well at least created accounts.

 


Is Twitter a competitor for Facebook? Twitter is for short public messages to random people. Not really what you do on Facebook, is it? VK and Qzone aren't US or EU alternatives. Tumblr is a microblog....
 


Define "personal info".

If I write something and post it on FB, if they were not allowed to "pass any personal info to any 3rd party or use it itself for anything but security reason when FB need to identify user"
...then no one else could see it. Not your friends, not your mom...no one.

"3rd party" includes other facebook users. Which includes other FB users, like Cambridge Analytica (or the dozen other entities that are doing exactly the same thing). They're just using it differently than you or I might.
 


Sending short instant messages to ... people I know is what I use Facebook for ... at least once a month I check it.

VK is in English, no reason you couldn't use it.

 
VK is partially English, yes. Their users are almost entirely Russian. Antitrust in the US doesn't include what goes on on a different continent.
You kind of accidentally nailed the difference between Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is indeed about interaction with "friends" while Twitter is for "texting" with everybody else.
 

Did you not read the article, or follow any of the news about Facebook following the Cambridge analytica scandal? Facebook was doing a half assed job protecting people's data to the extent that data was being harvested without permission and in manners which violated FB's own stated policies. So yes, FB absolutely has a share of the blame.

Same response to @derekullo

If Facebook were honest and open about what information is shared and how it can be used (and taking sufficient measures to ensure practice abides by policy), that's one thing. But that has not been the case.
 
Facebook most certainly doesn't need to change their policies regarding their use of people's data that is stored on their site. It's not majority rule, it's not a democratically run company. It's also not a charity. It's Facebook's service, not yours therefore it's Facebook's rules, not yours.

Do you know how dangerous it is to go around using the government as a hammer to force people to do things?

New users are never forced. They commit to the agreement because the service they are signing up for is worth more than what they are giving in return. The only force I can imagine being used is peer pressure, but this has absolutely nothing to do with Facebook needing to change their behavior. They're not coercing anybody to do anything and using terms like force gives an incorrect impression.
 


That's not completely accurate. If FB is storing user data that by law belongs in the EU on US servers and is not to be processed anywhere else, by EU law, that's illegal and FB can and will be held accountable for it. If FB wants to operate in those countries as an entity, they need to follow the established laws in those countries or that region. The fact that FB is not following those laws is just another gasoline soaked log that's about to be tossed onto ol' Zuck's fire.
 
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