Greg's Corner

Facebook least trusted tech company in America

Even though the midterm election went largely as predicted with minimal Facebook chicanery, it was another type of poll that closed election week on Facebook. Thanks to the ever-haunting Cambridge Analytica scandal and various other privacy compromises that have plagued Facebook in the past year, a poll conducted for Fortune shows that consumer confidence in Facebook is at an all-time low with Facebook being the least trusted company among the tech giants. Citing privacy issues as their major concerns, an overwhelming majority of the poll takers said Facebook couldn’t be trusted.

According to the poll’s results, Facebook came in dead last in consumer trust among tech companies losing out to such companies as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Apple. Only 22% of those polled said that they trust Facebook with their personal data. On the opposite end, Amazon received a 59% approval rating when it came to personal data issues which is saying something since Amazon tends to keep a lot of our personal financial information on file after we make a purchase.

So, if Fortune’s numbers are correct the question that needs to be asked is why are so many people still using Facebook? Part of it is a symbiotic relationship between brands and their customers as if you want to be a top-selling brand you need to be where the customers are and they’re on Facebook. And if consumers want to know more about a brand they’re more likely to go to the brand’s Facebook page than a corporate website. Also, if Facebook is so badly trusted with our personal information why do we continue to share so much personal information publicly in our news feeds? Facebook may be inept when it comes to keeping our information private but since we keep volunteering the information should we be surprised?