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Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting tractio

Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting traction with corporate customers with the most atrocious privacy record of just about any company.

fwn 10y ago
They did not have any breaches, did they? I'm curious what you are referring to.
- grabeh 10y ago
  He is referring to Facebook's record in relation to the use of user information, not a data breach by Facebook.
ethanbond 10y ago
There are a lot of comms that aren't really sensitive, no? Event organization, menu updates, building maintenance updates etc. You're right that it can't really swallow everything, but it actually helps (users) that it can't. It relegates FB to a casual thing and not a real business tool. Whether or not this is good for Facebook is a different matter, and I agree with your implication that it probably isn't.
- weavie 10y ago
  With enough of this insensitive data a well tuned ai could easily determine a lot of info about the company. Less events organised than previous years, or organised at cheaper venues, coupled with cheaper meals and less building maintenance could very well imply the company is facing hardship and are cutting costs. Time to start showing recruitment agency ads to the staff members personal facebook accounts.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    Far richer and far more actionable data would be accessible from employees' personal accounts anyways.
chris_wot 10y ago
Actually, the company I work for is already using it. The data is kept entirely seperate to Facebook and from what I've read, Facebook doesn't own the data - the company does. It's much better than Yammer, seems to work as well if slightly better than Google+ and yet remains a huge pain in the arse. But no more so than other company communication tool. I give it 6 months to a year before it falls into disuse.
dijit 10y ago
Sidenote: We trust slack and they have had multiple breaches. People (non-techs) don't seem to give a crap.
- ffggvv 10y ago
  > People (non-techs) don't seem to give a crap. I think a lot of HN readers don't give a crap too. Just see any thread about firefox/facebook/google/apple/whatever and HN readers will prefer X because Y. Where X is a proprietary software or service and Y is a stupid reason. I don't have the link but a commenter said that they value their privacy very much, but use safari over firefox because it takes 10 ms less to open. Yep!
  - sgift 10y ago
    > Where X is a proprietary software or service and Y is a stupid reason. What's your definition of a stupid reason? "I don't agree"?
    - ffggvv 10y ago
      If someone wants to use X I have no problem with that. But don't say you value your privacy and understand the implications if you can't sacrifice a bit of convenience for it. That's all. Stupid was the wrong word.
ffggvv 10y ago
Would you trust Facebook with your personal communications and by extension yours and of your family innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting traction with techy customers with the most atrocious privacy record of just about any tech passionate. /s Just look at any facebook thread and see how many HN readers use it. The stasi wasn't enough of a lesson.
- scholia 10y ago
  If you work for a big company then you may already be a member of a Facebook "network" of company employees based on email addresses. (I was joined to one.) Seems to work in much the same way as college addresses. I've also seen company employees start their own closed, private Facebook groups for work purposes because the in-house services were terrible. (I was joined to one.) It's easier than getting a group of people to sign up for a separate third-party service. (Tried that. Didn't work.) I assume Facebook noticed this phenomenon and decided to improve on it, and exploit it. I don't expect most users see a problem because they already trust Facebook with their personal information. And I wouldn't be surprised if users trust it more than Google, which now stands for surveillance-based advertising.
  - tdkl 10y ago
    > I've also seen company employees start their own closed, private Facebook groups for work purposes This would probably get them fired in certain companies with responsible information policies. > I don't expect most users see a problem because they already trust Facebook with their personal information. Which is wrong as naive in the first place. > And I wouldn't be surprised if users trust it more than Google, which now stands for surveillance-based advertising. Facebook stands for social manipulation advertising. Pick your poison.
    - scholia 10y ago
      > This would probably get them fired in certain companies with responsible information policies. Sure, but if people followed the rules, almost no work would get done. (In the UK, "working to rule" is a form of industrial action that's only a little short of a strike.) > Which is wrong as naive in the first place. Yeah, more than 1.6 billion people are naive and wrong. > Facebook stands for social manipulation advertising. Pick your poison. How does that work, then? Otherwise, there's an ethical difference between sharing information voluntarily, for their own benefit -- which people do on Facebook -- and Google's clandestine tracking, which is for Google's benefit.
supercoder 10y ago
Probably more secure than Slack
pmlnr 10y ago
They do. My company does, unfortunately. (We're one of the beta testers of FB@Work.) It's the same as using Gmail for business mail, but hey, it's trendy.
eli 10y ago
Trusting Facebook doesn't feel categorically different than trusting Google.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 10y ago
It will probably fail but definitely not due to any privacy reasons. The majority does not share your view of Facebook's privacy problem.
bogomipz 10y ago
There's no shortage of companies that use Gmail for Work or Google Docs, Hangouts and Google Apps for work. Is it that much of stretch to use FB for similar?
corobo 10y ago
> Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Depends on the contract. If they break the contract their wallet's big enough to recompense.

fwn 10y ago

They did not have any breaches, did they? I'm curious what you are referring to.

grabeh 10y ago
He is referring to Facebook's record in relation to the use of user information, not a data breach by Facebook.

ethanbond 10y ago

There are a lot of comms that aren't really sensitive, no? Event organization, menu updates, building maintenance updates etc. You're right that it can't really swallow everything, but it actually helps (users) that it can't. It relegates FB to a casual thing and not a real business tool. Whether or not this is good for Facebook is a different matter, and I agree with your implication that it probably isn't.

weavie 10y ago
With enough of this insensitive data a well tuned ai could easily determine a lot of info about the company. Less events organised than previous years, or organised at cheaper venues, coupled with cheaper meals and less building maintenance could very well imply the company is facing hardship and are cutting costs. Time to start showing recruitment agency ads to the staff members personal facebook accounts.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  Far richer and far more actionable data would be accessible from employees' personal accounts anyways.

chris_wot 10y ago

Actually, the company I work for is already using it. The data is kept entirely seperate to Facebook and from what I've read, Facebook doesn't own the data - the company does. It's much better than Yammer, seems to work as well if slightly better than Google+ and yet remains a huge pain in the arse. But no more so than other company communication tool. I give it 6 months to a year before it falls into disuse.

dijit 10y ago

Sidenote: We trust slack and they have had multiple breaches. People (non-techs) don't seem to give a crap.

ffggvv 10y ago
> People (non-techs) don't seem to give a crap. I think a lot of HN readers don't give a crap too. Just see any thread about firefox/facebook/google/apple/whatever and HN readers will prefer X because Y. Where X is a proprietary software or service and Y is a stupid reason. I don't have the link but a commenter said that they value their privacy very much, but use safari over firefox because it takes 10 ms less to open. Yep!
- sgift 10y ago
  > Where X is a proprietary software or service and Y is a stupid reason. What's your definition of a stupid reason? "I don't agree"?
  - ffggvv 10y ago
    If someone wants to use X I have no problem with that. But don't say you value your privacy and understand the implications if you can't sacrifice a bit of convenience for it. That's all. Stupid was the wrong word.

ffggvv 10y ago

Would you trust Facebook with your personal communications and by extension yours and of your family innermost secrets? Good luck to Facebook in getting traction with techy customers with the most atrocious privacy record of just about any tech passionate. /s Just look at any facebook thread and see how many HN readers use it. The stasi wasn't enough of a lesson.

scholia 10y ago
If you work for a big company then you may already be a member of a Facebook "network" of company employees based on email addresses. (I was joined to one.) Seems to work in much the same way as college addresses. I've also seen company employees start their own closed, private Facebook groups for work purposes because the in-house services were terrible. (I was joined to one.) It's easier than getting a group of people to sign up for a separate third-party service. (Tried that. Didn't work.) I assume Facebook noticed this phenomenon and decided to improve on it, and exploit it. I don't expect most users see a problem because they already trust Facebook with their personal information. And I wouldn't be surprised if users trust it more than Google, which now stands for surveillance-based advertising.
- tdkl 10y ago
  > I've also seen company employees start their own closed, private Facebook groups for work purposes This would probably get them fired in certain companies with responsible information policies. > I don't expect most users see a problem because they already trust Facebook with their personal information. Which is wrong as naive in the first place. > And I wouldn't be surprised if users trust it more than Google, which now stands for surveillance-based advertising. Facebook stands for social manipulation advertising. Pick your poison.
  - scholia 10y ago
    > This would probably get them fired in certain companies with responsible information policies. Sure, but if people followed the rules, almost no work would get done. (In the UK, "working to rule" is a form of industrial action that's only a little short of a strike.) > Which is wrong as naive in the first place. Yeah, more than 1.6 billion people are naive and wrong. > Facebook stands for social manipulation advertising. Pick your poison. How does that work, then? Otherwise, there's an ethical difference between sharing information voluntarily, for their own benefit -- which people do on Facebook -- and Google's clandestine tracking, which is for Google's benefit.

supercoder 10y ago

Probably more secure than Slack

pmlnr 10y ago

They do. My company does, unfortunately. (We're one of the beta testers of FB@Work.) It's the same as using Gmail for business mail, but hey, it's trendy.

eli 10y ago

Trusting Facebook doesn't feel categorically different than trusting Google.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Kiro 10y ago

It will probably fail but definitely not due to any privacy reasons. The majority does not share your view of Facebook's privacy problem.

bogomipz 10y ago

There's no shortage of companies that use Gmail for Work or Google Docs, Hangouts and Google Apps for work. Is it that much of stretch to use FB for similar?

corobo 10y ago

> Would you trust Facebook with your internal corporate communications and by extension the company's innermost secrets? Depends on the contract. If they break the contract their wallet's big enough to recompense.