I'm not sure why Zuckerman needs a "break"

Are we talking about the same guy who stole source code and the idea from someone else?

I'm sure when the groundwork was being laid to launch Beacon the revenue model looked very enticing.

This is an ethics case connected to a social networking site where the sheep have willingly surrendered their information. The shepherd got a better deal from some wolves.

Don't cut this Zuckerman guy any slack.

I'm inclined to give people a break when they make honest mistakes, but I don't view what Zuckerberg did as an honest mistake. In fact, it seems like he was given a Web 2.0 ethics test and failed miserably.

Absent any indication that he will pass the ethics test the next time he has a hard ethical decision to make, I'm not inclined to give him a break. In his Dec 5 apology he talks about getting the privacy/ease of use balance wrong. That doesn't ring true to me. He failed the ethics test when he chose the "opt out" model. There’s no need to obfuscate the issue with talk about getting the balance wrong. He's acting like he didn't understand the problems with the "opt out" model (but now he does?). I doubt very seriously he and his executive team didn't understand the downside of the "opt out" model when they chose it. They just can’t be that naive.

The “opt out” model is chosen when your customers can’t be trusted to “opt in.” I don’t think there’s ever an excuse to use the “opt out” model when sharing customer’s personal data. Anybody who tells you they are doing it to make your life easy is misleading you. They do it because they want your data and you can’t be trusted to “opt in.” They want your data because, in some fashion, it makes them money.

Yes, Zuckerberg chose unwisely; and of course he’s sorry about it, but he still failed the ethics test. This is an indication of how he views the trade-off between our personal data and his bottom line, not an honest mistake.

I fall somewhere between Elana Varon and the Anonymous twins on this. Zuckerberg can't be so naive that he didn't realize how invasive Beacon would be vis a vis user data, but I have to give him props for saying "sorry". We don't hear that much from businesses that screw up, so it's remarkable when we do.

I think it might be useful, if a trifle antediluvian, to think of the info one posts on social networking sites as analogous to appearing on the front page of the New York Times - IOW, if you don't want it on the front page of the Times, don't put it/do it on Facebook...

Casey Quinlan
Mighty Mouth
Mighty Casey Media