Facebook is starting to take a hit in the press about the growing privacy concerns among their nearly 500 million users. Hitwise reported a 23% increase in the amount searches related to “deleting a Facebook account”. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denies that Facebook is playing fast and loose with the personal information of its users and announced that new privacy tools to give its users more control are on the way.
While speaking to a group of business owners on social media last week, I received my first question on the topic of Facebook’s future because of privacy issues. I don’t believe these issues are anything more than a speed bump for Facebook. When a company goes from a college project to nearly a half billion users in less than 5 years there are bound to be growing pains. In the meantime, I will keep watching the progress and investigating new ways to use this tool as a legitimate marketing medium…you should too.