What do Facebook, Bebo and Hi5 all have in common? They want your personal details. I'll never understand the appeal of "social networking". Posting all of your personal details on a website with a loose privacy statement.
How many of you have actually read their privacy policies? One clause appears on some form or another across all of them:
"We may share your information with third parties, including responsible companies with which we have a relationship."
An introduction into the economics of the web
Contrary to popular belief, running a website isn't free. And running a website that serves millions of hits a month certainly isn't free. Here's some of the costs involved:
- Server hardware (either leased or purchased)
- Bandwidth
- Domain registration
Some of the larger sites likely also have costs such as legal fees, trademark registration, and so on.
So what's their business plan? There's really only two ways these companies can make money:
- Advertising
- Selling your personal details.
But really, what's stopping them from doing both?
Let's assume that your particular social networking site isn't evil and won't sell your personal details. Think about what happens when one of these websites goes under. They typically get bought out by another company (read: marketing company) for the sole purpose of gaining access to the database of personal details they have amassed. Just look at the MySpace acquisition by News Corp.