Another week, another big who-ha about Facebook and Privacy. Surely Facebook allowing its app community to share information about its citizens should come as no surprise by now. How do we expect these developers to make money? They aren’t altruistic, Facebook gaming is big-bucks business and the pressure is on to make hay while the sun shines.
Social gaming developer, Ngmoco, was recently bought by DeNA for $400m! Zynga, the infamous Farmville developer, was recently valued at $4 billion.
Free is not free, it’s simply bartering; “I’ll let you sell a little info about me if I can just plant a few more virtual carrots please” and “I’ll tell you everything I know about my friends too if I could just virtually tickle my cows again”
Is it a fair exchange? Only you can decide that, but you should stop being surprised at these privacy ‘leaks’. They aren’t leaks at all, simply day to day trading.
And until Facebook introduces a ‘Buy your Privacy back’ button, hidden deep in your Account somewhere, we’re stuck with it.
Update: Facebook haveĀ acknowledged this specific issue