Evolution of Facebook Privacy - Matt McKeon 2010

In a world where being able to connect with old friends, family, co-workers, and connections is now the “norm” it surprises me when we start to see backlash as we are with Facebook recently. Especially when these are FREE services. However, everyone in the Internet age has been foregoing bits and pieces of their privacy for the convenience of connecting with each other and interacting in a social way online.

The thing is that when we interact online we are always leaving a little digital signature of who we are, where we came from, what we did, etc. Part of this is an aspect of the Web in general through cookies and GPS coordinates. Another part is just by virtue of how the Web works and how analytics are tracking site behavior. While Web sites may not know who you are specifically (unless you log in), they will certainly get a good idea of what you like and deliver better content next time.

Free sites have to make money. Running Web servers, development costs, etc all costs money and no investor or venture capitalist is going to invest in a company without the potential to get their money back. So for companies like Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, (insert name of cool website with free service), they all have the same issue; how will they make money? For many, it will be in online advertising. Google does this with most of its products from Google Search to Gmail to YouTube. Facebook does it with ads and virtual gifts. Even LinkedIn does it with their online recruiting (job board), research arm, and advertisements. However, nobody really seems to care about it when it is advertising because most often it is what keeps the service free to use. Do you remember when Google first rolled out ads that were contextual to your search, or your email messages? Everyone was outraged, yet millions of people still use those services. When you go onto Amazon and you see products that are based on your behavior, your information you have shared and more. No matter what we do online, the more we want convenience of personalized information and use of free services we will have to give up a piece of our privacy. When you check-in at a restaurant using Yelp, Foursquare or Gowalla, you are sending out your location over the web. “I’m here!”

Surprisingly I?ve seen little mention of the possible reasons why Facebook has shifted their privacy policy. I was recently at Facebook?s HQ and the light bulb went off for me when it came up in conversation. Facebook doesn?t want to be a social network anymore, they want to be a single source of your online presence. They want to provide you, the user, with news, communications, and ability to interaction with all your social graphs (friends, family, co-workers, and brands). Facebook has become a platform and stopped being a social network.

The easiest way that Facebook, and other social networks, are integrating your personal information is via their authentication tools. In Facebook?s world this is Facebook Connect. It allows you, the user, to log into another website with your Facebook credentials. In some cases, like a registration for a site, you can populate certain fields and share your activity with this new site with your Facebook friends. This is where everyone is getting their arms up air over this privacy invasion. But if you want the convenience of not having to remember dozens of usernames and passwords, using one, like what you use for Facebook becomes convenient.

The other big discussion is around Facebook?s social widgets. These are actually less intrusive as one might think. They are what we call iframes, which means the ?Like? button that they just rolled out is actually a page within a page. The Web site that the ?Like? button is on actually doesn?t get any information about that person. So for me, I have the ?Like? button on this blog post. If you see other people who ?like? this post, I get none of that data. It doesn?t go into a database of mine, or into an email to me. Zip. Nada. What makes them attractive to Web site administrators, like me, is that it provides a level of personalization that I couldn?t achieve otherwise. And because Facebook is 500M strong, the chances are of that personalization working on my Web site is pretty good. The same goes for CNN and thousands of other sites which have integrated these new features into them.

The next time you think about your privacy and where your information is being shared, or even sold, think about he conveniences you have online when you use Web sites. You are giving up your privacy every day, but you are also willing to do so. In fact, if you really want to know who else is using your personal information just look into the fine print of the following:

• Your Bank
• Your Credit Cards
• Your Loyalty Cards (Grocer, Movie Rental, Book Store)
• Google Account (Oh, how quickly we forget about them)
• Professional Association or Trade Association

You may be surprised on what you read.

While I’m not going to get into all the details of this visit here (that will come out in other posts) I am going to quickly talk about work culture.  I’ve visited three major technology companies over the last few years: Microsoft, Google, and now Facebook.  Each experience was different and I think that has to do with when they were started, what their focus is on, and how they execute their product.

New School vs. Old School. I think there are clear differences between old school vs. new school companies.  Old school is hierarchical with office space, titles and corporate environment.  They have high-walled cubes and offices with doors.  Microsoft is old school.  When I visited Microsoft you didn’t feel the innovation happening.  Maybe that was because it was in a different building than the one I was in.  When I visited Google and Facebook the environment was much different.  They have open spaces, collaboration areas, appropriate levels of distractions (like FB has a Guitar Hero room and ping pong tables). You could feel the magic happening.  You could tell there were smart people in the room coding ideas, sharing thoughts, working towards common goals.  It was energizing to be around and just observe.  People were excited to be at work and working on their projects.  It could also have been the fact that people were in jeans, walking around with Macs, working on 40″ monitors, etc.

Location, Location, Location. Maybe it is just being in Silicon Valley that is the biggest difference.  Both Google and Facebook are miles away from each other.  In fact, Facebook is practically in the middle of a residential district just outside of Standford University.  However I’d be willing to bet that HP, which is around the corner and was in the building Facebook now occupies, is a little more old school.  Microsoft, on the other hand, has a campus that has a highway that runs right down the middle outside of Seattle.   Impressive, yes, but still corporate in nature for sure.   However, it may not be your location.  I’ve also visited Total Attorney’s offices in Chicago and their set up is very similar to Google and Facebook, so maybe the Valley isn’t as critical as one might think.

Focus. While Google and Facebook haven’t been around for a decade yet, I think that is actually one of their prime reasons they are as successful as they are.  They are focused.  Every employee who works there knows how their project fits into the grand scheme of their company.  These companies have a focus (beyond profits), and that is something their employees embrace and motivates them.  They want to be the best, breaking new ground in their industry, and setting trends, not fads. Google lets their employees work on pet projects for 20% of their time.  This is how products like GMail, Google Talk emerged.  Those have then taken Google into directions they initially didn’t assume they would get into — office tools.  Facebook has a focus on transforming itself from a social network to a profile management and communication tool.  Products like their lists which help you categorize your friends helps you manage who sees what and what you communicate to whom.  It has opened a whole new door to the Social Graph for them — and how we communicate and share information.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is very diverse in their product lines.  They have several divisions: Search, Gaming, Office, etc.  and from a conglomerate standpoint, the act and operate like a big corporation — each division responsible for their own bottom line.  While Google has several product lines as well, their delivery vehicle is the same — the Web.

Photos from Facebook HQ

Photos from Google Visit

So while one may wear a tie to work and the other scoots around on a skateboard, think about how your company works.  Is it effective in producing your products and services?  Does every employee know how their project fits within the overall strategy of the organization? What changes could you make that would allow for better work product, focus, and commitment from your employees?   Maybe business casual is OK everyday.   It may depend on the profession you are in.  It may depend on experience and longevity of your management team.   My biggest take away from these visits is that your work environment and culture is very critical to the success of your company.

I will have some thoughts on this and other Facebook stuff soon.

This article originally was published in the May 2007 issue of LLRX.

You have worked for a large firm for many years and you have made the decision to either go solo or start a small firm. You were used to having access to all your information via an Intranet, file server, and your desktop. You could practice law and let the IT department worry about when the printer jammed or if you got a virus. Now that you are solo, you are the one that has to deal with all those problems as well as practice law.

It is no secret that one of the largest concerns for new and existing solo lawyers has to do with building an infrastructure for your new firm. Specifically, technology related concerns impact this group the most; computers, office software, security, back-up, billing software, case management, etc. The options are either to invest in all the technology yourself and spend a lot of time, money, and energy keeping all the systems running properly, troubleshooting problems, and performing regular maintenance, or outsource all of this overhead for someone else to manage on your behalf. However, you became a solo to practice law, not troubleshoot technology applications each day.

Alternatives to the two scenarios above do exist. You can invest in Web-based tools to take some of the burden off of you, and let someone else worry about the back-up, security, and maintenance. The benefits allow you to practice law and have fewer worries about issues that may come up regarding the technology itself. The downside is that if your Internet connection goes out, you cannot do much. Even worse is if the hosting company that you are using has severe problems, your data may be lost forever. I’ll cover some of the tools that are available for you to explore as well as raise concerns of relying on such Web-based services for your daily work.

Tools Available

There are many office and support tools available in Web-based formats that can lessen your office overhead.

Google’s Products

Google continues to roll-out new web-based office applications that are worth reviewing. The company started with an email client called Gmail and through acquisitions and their own development teams, have expanded their offerings to include office applications. Currently Google provides the following:

• Google Docs (word processing and spreadsheets)
• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• iGoogle (personalized page)

Google Docs and Google Calendar offer collaborative functions, allowing them to be shared others. Both services are free. Google also has a version of their office tools in a complete package that is fee based.

Google offers a small business package (Standard Package is free, Premier Package is $50 per year per user) includes:

• A customizable Start Page
• Google Docs and Spreadsheets
• Page Creator (basic webpage with a WYSIWYG editor)
• Gmail account
• Google Talk (IM/VOIP)
• Google Calendar
• Control Panel to manage accounts and your domain
• Help and support
• Extensible APIs to integrate with other third party software

This can be a very powerful combination of tools for solos and small firms who are looking to reduce overhead and IT support for basic office functions.

ZoHo’ Products

ZoHo is a brand of AdventNet, a software company. Their free and for pay services offer a wide range of options for solos and small firms who are looking to reduce IT overhead. Like Google, their Web-hosted tools provide a lot of functionality, but not a full suite such as Microsoft Office. Currently Zoho has the following product offerings:

• Writer
• Sheet
• Show
• Calendar and Email
• Project
• CRM
• Planner
• Wiki
• Chat
• Notebook (private beta)
• Mail (private beta)

Tom Mighell recently wrote about the benefits and differences between Google and ZoHo’s products vs. Microsoft Office in the March issue of Law Practice Magazine. One of the biggest drawbacks of using these services has to do with back-up. Tom reports that neither Google nor ZoHo offer bulk back-up to another source. You must download each file individually to your local computer prior to transfer to another data back-up location.

37Signals’ Products

While being able to replicate what a Microsoft Office Suite might offer is important for solos and small firms, there are other tools that will help manage your office. 37Signals based in Chicago, offers a variety of Web-based tools that address needs such as project management (or case management if you want to think if it in that perspective) and Client Relationship Management. Known for producing simple to use tools that offer many features but are not overwhelming, 37Signals products include:

• Highrise (CRM – Customer Relationship Management)
• Basecamp (Project Management)

37Signals’ products also offer many other opportunities as each of their products have APIs (application programming interface), which allow for other software to interact with theirs. A great example is their Basecamp product. This project management tool allows you to collaborate with others on a project by setting tasks, milestones with reminders, and file management for that project. If you purchase their comprehensive package of services it will even do time tracking. One feature Basecamp does not offer is billing or invoicing. That’s where FreshBooks comes in. They use the Basecamp API to allow their web-based billing and invoice software to interact with Basecamp to allow you to create invoices for each project. Of course you would need a FreshBooks account to make this happen, but having those two applications talk to each other makes sending out bills and invoices seamless.

Concerns for Lawyers

As the new generation of Web-based services and software arrives, lawyers will always have concerns. Do you reduce your overhead costs by outsourcing these tools or do you manage all of them yourself? If you do take a serious look at using Web-based tools, then privacy, data security, and copyright of content will be issues with which you will have to deal. This is particularly important if you plan to use “free” versions. Catherine Sanders Reach, Director of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center, recently wrote on the group’s Site-tation site about the cost of free resources. Ms. Reach stated “…attorney’s must give thought to the potential repercussions of relying on free technology for mission-critical functions.” And she is correct. If for some reason your free web-based email service is down and clients can’t contact you efficiently, that certainly impacts business.

Ultimately, you have to be comfortable with the due diligence you perform in backing up your data, understanding what you are really giving up by using free services, and evaluating how these factors impact your clients and their respective matters.

What Does the Total Package Lack?

At this time I think there are several hurdles that must be overcome before any lawyer or business professional can truly use web-based tools to manage essential office tasks.

Simple single sign-on: Of all the online tools that I use, test, and experiment with, one of the nice things about the Google products is that I don’t have to re-login to use each application. Single sign-on is important for users who use multiple web-based applications from the same vendor. Of course if you decide to pick different products from different vendors this may always be an issue. OpenID may solve this problem (a universal unique identifier many web-based companies are adopting for access).

Access to third party back-up sources: Data security is always going to be on the mind of any lawyer or small business owner. This means that if you want to ship your data off to a third party security/storage center you need to be able to have the ability to do this at any time.

Smartphone access/integration: The world is quickly becoming more mobile. The expectation to have access to all your information at any given time is also becoming more mainstream. If you worked at a larger firm, what was your required response time? I understand some firms require their lawyers’ response to clients must be within 2 hours of receipt. Web-based products need to have the ability to integrate with Smartphones (Treo, BlackBerry, Q, BlackJack, etc.) to allow lawyers access to their contacts, documents, and email directly from their mobile device.

Central Start Center: Finally what would be very desirable is the ability to have a central start center which you can log-in when you get to work, have a portal that gives you access to all these applications as well as the ability to pull in other information like local news, custom search, and maybe even sports scores. Applications like iGoogle (now their name-brand for their personalized page) and NetVibes help do this, but these sites still have limitations, although they are improving continuously.

Ultimately, you can become relatively efficient with current Web-based applications. For the “office” applications, you need to be diligent in using the Web-app as an application, not as a storage facility. If you are finished writing or collaborating on a document, export it out to save in some other location. This does not mean you cannot re-import it and work on it again, but you should think of these as applications only as a tool, not as a complete, final solution.

By using Web-based applications, you can reduce the overhead dedicated to operating your office. Be diligent in checking the terms of use and privacy statements of all “free” applications. Be cautious of using vendors who are still small and have the potential to fold at any given moment (namely anything in “beta”). You do not want to lose your data forever because the lights go out in Silicon Valley. Finally, use the tools you feel most comfortable using. If you are a WordPerfect or Microsoft Word pro and use special features, equivalent Web-based applications will not serve your needs. Be smart about the tools you use and you will find the benefits and efficiencies come with those decisions.

What concerns you most about web-based office solutions replacing traditional desktop applications? Let me know at fred@frederickfaulkner.com.