Facebook has recently announced they have 500 million users. The movie 500 Million Friends is due out this fall. Recently 100 million Facebook users information was scrapped off the site. The account information for 100 million people in the world was grabbed. Usernames, emails, names, etc., no passwords were grabbed. All of this information was posted to a download site that is often used to transport illegal files. Anyone can grab this database of names and emails now. Now, what could you do with this information? Think about marketing. Would your marketing department love to get 100 million names and emails at no cost?
In a bit of a counter story, a new website has started up that basically stalks Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. The site posts pictures and facts about the details of his life. The goal of the site is this is basically what he gets for his business practices.
Now I am all for standing up for yourself and fighting back. However, the first thought I had when reading the story is that the person who use Facebook and post details is doing it by choice. No one forces people to discuss what they had for dinner last night online, they make that choice. Also no one forces them to even use Facebook, aren’t their other social networking sites around?
Getting mad at the founder seems like taking it out on the wrong person. If I post something I wouldn’t want my kids to read online no one is to blame but me.
My main point for executives here is this, data leak prevention is key. If I don’t allow Facebook in my company I don’t have to worry about my employees PII getting stolen.