go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

Facebook’s "Like" Buttons Are Under Threat (FB)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-like-buttons-are-under-threat-2012-10

Web sites are not allowed to collect infomration on users under 13 without their parents permission.

it’s part of a child-privacy law called COPPA.

This is trouble for Facebook because of “like” buttons, which are on about 9 million Websites. 

You can image how hard it would be for Facebook to make sure that everyone who clicks a like button is over 13.

Really hard. Even a little added friction, such as a “are you 13 and over?” dialogue box would tremendously slow down volume.

So that’s why Facebook sent a 20-page letter to the FTC (.PDF), last week, arguing (begging?) for a change in this  rule. Facebook argued that Like buttons are free speech.

The rule should change.

How is the fact that a kid clicked “like” any kind of threat to their saftey or privacy?

But sometimes the government does stupid things, so maybe the law won’t change.

That’d be pretty bad news for Facebook, which is dependent on all those “likes” for a lot of traffic and engagement.

Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Ever thought you would have to read 21 books to get to the bottom of what caused the financial crisis?

Andrew Lo, an economist at MIT, has some bad news: it’s going to take at least 22.

Lo, a leading expert on hedge funds and financial engineering, has written a paper (h/t NPR) for the Journal of Economic Literature describing his experience reading 21 books on the crisis — nine by journalists, 11 by academics and one by a former Treasury Secretary.

His conclusion: In a field that prides itself on its scientific rigor (however dismal), the books reveal that alarmingly few facts about the crisis have been agreed upon. Was there too little or too much regulation? How much of a factor were low interest rates? No one’s been able to say conclusively.

“After each book, I felt like I knew less,” Lo told NPR’s Planet Money.

Economics, he says, has fallen well short of that standard when it comes to understanding the crisis:

“Many of us like to think of financial economics as a science, but complex events like the financial crisis suggest that this conceit may be more wishful thinking than reality.”

Read Andrew Lo’s Reading About the Financial Crisis: A 21-Book Review >

Please follow Clusterstock on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Goldman In Talks To Hire Former Geithner Aide To Lead Communication Effort
• Lloyd Blankfein Just Fired His Fall Guy, But Goldman’s Problems Aren’t Going Away
• Here’s The Will Ferrell Super Bowl Ad For Old Milwaukee That You Missed

 |  Verizon  | Email this | Comments

—
drag2share – drag and drop RSS news items on your email contacts to share (click SEE DEMO)

Tags: 17 nov, advertising, app, bad news, business, company, cool, demo, demographic data, e mail, EDT, email, email contacts, Engadget, escape, escape route, framework, grandma, history, history location, Important, important notice, information, kind, location, marketing, missive, month, name, news, news items, no hard feelings, notice, Nov, online, Permalink, phone, policy, privacy, privacy policy, provider, route, scheme, share, targeted advertising, TechCrunch, thing, Thu, usage, use, user, Verizon, verizon wireless, VZW, Wireless, yesterday