The National Labor Relations Board has just ruled that companies must allow their employees to discuss working conditions on social networks like Facebook. For details see this post. This ruling brings into serious question most company policies that prohibit discussion of a company on Facebook or other social media sites.
Facebook is due to announce their new email system today. I predict it will be dubbed FaceMail, either by Facebook or by the users.
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Facebook has drawn criticism over it's very broad privacy policies which give the company unlimited rights to any information uses post on the site.
When you combine these three issues it forms a perfect storm. Companies can't restrict employees from using Facebook. Facebook has unlimited rights to anything a user posts on the site. And Facebook will now offer an email system supporting attachments and all of the bells and whistles. This breeds a nightmare for security minded people of all types.
Prediction: I believe that Facebook will eventually need to adopt a restrictive privacy policy with regards to the email system. If I send you an email, and you forward it to someone on Facebook, or even to yourself on Facebook. That should not give Facebook a copyright to the materials contained in the email and any attachments. Which their current TOS does.
This puts Facebook in a dilemma because tightening their privacy policy to allow a reasonable email system only sheds light on their lax privacy policy regarding everything else. So I think they will be forced to tighten their general privacy policy eventually as well. However, they may fight it, it remains to be seen. Obama's new internet privacy watchdog may intervene if Facebook doesn't act- so they'll act on their own first to preempt government mandates.
Give me 1 Good Reason for you to use or not use Facemail.