Facebook is quickly approaching the 1 billion members mark, and it’s also growing daily as a new revenue source for affiliate and online marketers. Through Facebook Ads, advertisers can target nearly all members of Facebook based on their demographics and interests. There has been a lot of discussion on Facebook and their privacy settings lately. This article will discuss the latest FTC settlement with Facebook. It seems like Facebook is always in the news for something, but they just keep growing and chugging along… is Facebook too big to fail?
On November 29, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission settled allegations that Facebook violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by virtue of its privacy practices. The FTC’s enforcement action against Facebook is a clear example of the FTC’s efforts to ensure that websites live up to the privacy promises they make to consumers and that Facebook’s innovations will not come at the expense of consumer privacy.
The FTC’s complaint alleges that Facebook engaged in unfair trade practices by repeatedly failing to conform to its own promises regarding privacy to its hundreds of millions of users. Specifically, the FTC alleges that although Facebook informed customers that they could “control who can see” their profile information by using privacy settings to restrict access to their profiles, these settings did not prevent certain third party applications from accessing their profile information.
The Commission also alleges that Facebook:
- Made changes to its website that made public, information that users previously designated as private, without adequate notice;
- Represented that third party applications would only be able to access profile information that was necessary to operate the application, but were oftentimes given unlimited access to consumer’s profile information;
- Provided advertisers with information about users despite promises that it would not do so; and
- Represented that users profile information, including photos and videos, would be in accessible upon deletion of accounts. However, Facebook continued to allow third parties to access such content after accounts were deactivated or deleted.
The alleged violations of Section 5 of the FTC Act also include a failure to comply with the substantive privacy requirements of the United States-European Union Safe Harbor Framework, a voluntary framework that allows companies to transfer personal data from the European Union to the United States in compliance with European Union law. Since at least 2009, Facebook has maintained self-certification with the Department of Commerce under the Safe Harbor program, under which it has declared its compliance with the seven Safe Harbor privacy principles in its public Privacy Policy and on the U.S. Department of Commerce website. In its complaint, the FTC alleged that Facebook failed to comply with the Safe Harbor principles of Notice and Choice that required it to inform individuals about all the purposes for which it collected their data and to give those individuals a choice about how their information would be used.
Pursuant to the terms of the proposed settlement, Facebook is barred from further misrepresenting its privacy practices and is required to obtain opt-in consent from users prior to making changes that override their privacy preferences. Facebook must also ensure that a user’s information cannot be accessed by anyone after a reasonable period of time, not to exceed 30 days, following the user’s deletion of his or her account, and implement a comprehensive program that protects the privacy and confidentiality of users’ information. Lastly, Facebook must obtain independent privacy compliance audits every two years for the next twenty years, certifying that it has a privacy program in place that satisfies the requirements of the FTC consent decree.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, the company will create two new corporate officer position, Chief Privacy Policy Officer and Chief Privacy Products Officer.
Inasmuch as the FTC has recently agreed to consent decrees with both Google and Twitter involving record keeping obligations, the FTC now appears to possess regulatory oversight over the privacy and data security practices of the big three social networking companies in the United States.
This guest post was written by Richard B. Newman, an Internet attorney that specializes in performance marketing and regulatory compliance at Hinch Newman LLP in New York, New York.
I didn’t learn this lesson by reading books, and I didn’t learn it because I made a mistake that affected my brand, or anything of that nature, it was simply a matter of time and experience. If you’re reading Zac’s blog now, there is every probability you’ve been following him for months, or years, now and that you follow him because you see him as a go to expert as far as blogging and affiliate marketing is concerned–that doesn’t mean he is the only one talking about affiliate marketing online, and that doesn’t mean there aren’t other affiliate marketing blogs. It’s really simple; Zac has built a brand and has been able to gain your trust. If Zac should recommend a product now and a brand new blogger to the affiliate marketing space does the same, I’m pretty sure that for every one person that buys through that new blogger, five will buy through Zac – it’s that simple, there’s no magic formula, it’s only a matter of time.
This was one lesson that took me some time to figure out, but it is also one of the best affiliate marketing lessons I have ever learned from my blog. It might be stressful asking product creators for coupons, or to be looking for discount codes for products you promote, but truth be told, using coupons to promote affiliate products might mean the difference in you making $100 or $1,000. I used to find it difficult to make product sales even after spending a lot of time trying to write the perfect review. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong, until one day, I accidentally promoted a product with a coupon, and I saw sales go through the roof. I used this technique to promote medifast products on my blog, and it worked. I used this same technique to promote nutrisystem products, and it worked. I also use coupons to promote a lot of other products on my blog, and the results have been stunning.
I used to be someone who reviewed products with the hope of making a lot of sales the same week I reviewed the product. I poured all my efforts into promoting a particular product, and it is sometimes saddening to only make a sale or two after all those efforts. What I didn’t know was that those reviews were a long time investment – those reviews I did months, or years, ago that nobody found started bringing in traffic from search engines, and I now make more sales in a week than I made in the month I reviewed them.
This lesson was also learned as a result of the 3rd lesson above. Not that I initially expected to get a boatload of traffic to my review page a few months after doing the review – in fact, I have even stopped thinking about some reviews I did, only to start noticing traffic come in day by day, months after the product was reviewed. After taking a look at my analytics to see where the traffic was coming from, it was one major source I saw: Google!
I keep on hearing misconceptions from new bloggers about how making money from affiliate marketing works. A lot of them will say they only need to get a lot of traffic to their site and, boom; they are already making tons of affiliate cash. I used to think the same way, but time proved me wrong.
1. Be proactive
Know Your Audience
When you feature products that are unrelated to your website’s product or service, or that you don’t believe in, you might regret it. So be mindful about promoting products that you know and trust, and can recommend to your audience. Better yet, write up a review and point readers to affiliate ads so they may respond if they choose. Focus on adding value to your site, and always ask yourself, “Will my readers appreciate this?”
Creating compelling content.
