Do you trust Facebook enough to let it handle your email?
Facebook announced a new messaging system that incorporates email, texts, instant messaging, and the Facebook messaging people are already using. But given the privacy concerns that have dogged the social media giant for years, are users going to be willing to trust Facebook enough to use it for all their personal communications?
The new service, which doesn’t have a name for some reason, is going to be rolling out slowly over the next several months. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that it will be an easier way to handle your messaging. But as the service was being announced, one could hear red flags being raised all over the world.
Some of our Twitter followers said that Gmail is treating them just fine and they see no reason to jump ship over to Facebook. And a lot of our followers said they could not trust Facebook with their messages because the company has been flawed with privacy so often in the past.
We talk with Marketplace reporter Steve Henn about the issues that have arisen in the past related to privacy. Steve says that Facebook offered little information at today’s event as to how privacy would be managed in this new product, which, again, doesn’t have a name. Why couldn’t they give it a name? Is it so hard to give it a name?
We also check in with Michael Zimmer, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to talk about the delicate business of information sharing.
Also in today’s show, a visit from actress and iPhone owner Julia Sweeney. She’s been trying to shed a few pounds with the help of a weight loss app called Lose It.
