Social media sites: friend or foe? What happens when you want to move on from a social media website? Ever noticed that not one of them provides an easy to find “unsubscribe” button?
And why would they?
The information you put on your profile about YOU is a marketer’s dream come true. Big business will pay even bigger money for this data and social media sites know it. Why else would Google have paid $1.65 Billion for YouTube, a company that had never earnt a cent?
Consider how it used to be done. Survey companies would round up a few people and paid them to take part in focus groups. Then they’d grill them hoping that the results reflected a fair cross section of the target demographic. These days people voluntarilly rush in their millions to spew out their personal and private details online.
Read the terms of service clearly. Web 2.0 sites control everything you put up on their pages. Sure they say you still “own” it. But you sign away your right to stop them doing anything they want with it. So how is that really ownership?
Does something really delete when you delete it? And what if you want to get rid of your whole account? Leaving evidence of your wild partying days online forever might not be a wise move. What if you later climb up the corporate ladder or get a job in the public spotlight?
Anything can be searched and dredged up about you in seconds. A jealous colleague or spiteful jerk could present it out of context and ruin your reputation instantly. Too bad it took you years of hard work to build up in the first place. Consider the fake sex photos that caused Pauline Hanson her last election defeat.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” will be a poor consolation.
Signing up is easy but deleting a social media profile is anything but. It would be a simple thing to put an “unsubscribe” link like you see at the bottom of automated emails. Instead they make you jump through 20 hoops. Most people don’t bother which leaves these companies free to make a fortune from your personal data.
If you decide to “unfriend” your current “friends forever” social media site but don’t know how just follow the links below. They contain step by step instructions for many of the popular sites.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2342599,00.asp
This one for ning:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080921091159AAZwfMy
Ever had rough treatment at the hands of a social media site? Do you know how to unsubscribe from any others not covered in these links? Help someone else by leaving a comment.
Tags: bookmarking, marketing, networking, surveys, unsubscribe, web 2.0
