Mark Zuckerberg must feel like he is in the middle of a never-ending storm. His latest data contretemps has the Federal Trade Commission looking into it along with authorities from Britain. So far, investigations haven’t slowed the growth of Facebook, but they are a distraction that could prove costly in monetary terms. The question now facing the company is how it let all this happen. It seems an arms-length transaction went terribly wrong. It trusted an app developer who then sent millions of individuals personal information to Cambridge Analytica. It wouldn’t be so bad had CA not used the data in the Trump campaign to influence voters. It would seem the lesson here is in the matters of personal information, trust no one. Facebook has to become paranoid about security, and it is not there yet. What happened to Facebook can happen to every other company that collects personal information. They might be breathing a sigh of relief that it was not them in the penalty box, but their time will come.
Marston Strategic Communications
Communicators Who Get Results