Facebook has recently been fined $5Bn for privacy violations :
The settlement resolves a formal complaint by the FTC alleging that Facebook “used deceptive disclosures and settings” that eroded user privacy, violating a prior agreement Facebook signed with the commission in 2012. Facebook also broke the law, the FTC alleged, by misusing phone numbers obtained for account security purposes to also target advertisements to its users. And the company allegedly deceived “tens of millions of users” by implying that a facial recognition feature on the service had not been enabled by default, when in fact it had (via).
The reaction (on Twitter, where the world opines) is that..Facebook is meaningless and is slowly losing market share (of attention economy). And it is just a matter of time..
But then, here is the ‘traction’ data to digest :
Facebook reported $16.89 billion in revenue for the 3 months ending in June, i.e. 28% increase from the same period a year ago.
To keep these numbers in perspective, the fine which FTC imposed is just a month of revenue for Facebook.
The bigger reality, however is that inspite of so much of negativity (among intellectuals) around Facebook (and the companies it owns), the ‘real business’ actually grew.
Will Facebook face hiring challenges after the FTC fine (i.e. people with a strong sense of ethics won’t join) ? I doubt.
Will Facebook face sales challenge after the FTC fine (i.e. sponsors will stop advertising on FB)? I doubt.
As an entrepreneur/leader, where do you draw the line between ‘doing good’ vs. ‘making loads of money?’.
Are the two even related?
Where do you draw the line?
Do you even need to?
PS: I often get this question when I see companies like BYJU’s and many others..
