Why No One Trusts Facebook To Power the Future

redletterdave (2493036) writes "Facebook owns virtually all the aspects of the social experience—photos (Instagram), status updates (Facebook), location services (Places)—but now, Facebook is transitioning from a simple social network to a full-fledged technology company that rivals Google, moonshot for moonshot. Yet, it's Facebook's corporate control of traffic that leads many to distrust the company. In a sense, people are stuck. When the time comes for someone to abandon Facebook, whether over privacy concerns or frustration with the company, Facebook intentionally makes it hard to leave. Even if you delete your account, your ghost remains—even when you die, Facebook can still make money off you. And that's not behavior fit for a company that's poised to take over the future."

Comments

Re:Yes, because it is

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Google lets you close your account and delete it, leaving no traces

How do you know that? Did Google offer you to audit their systems to verify what you believe?

More likely, Google, being an enormous information gathering company that live off that information, keep all your data and add a new tidbit of information to your file mentioning that on date D, you closed your account and deleted it.

If you truly believe Google's data retention policy is any different from Facebook's, you're delusional. And even if they say they do delete your data, they're so big and loaded with cash that nobody can ever check they really do.

Facebook is nasty, but at least they're clean nasty. Google cloaks in a good-corporate-citizen "do no evil" bullshit but is in the same business space - massive information gathering and monetizing.

So the best way to be sure Google has no information on you (or rather, as little as possible) is to not give them any whenever possible.