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Over the past weeks during the course the issue of privacy has come up numerous times. How much do we share, who do we share it with, and who can actually access all our information? Obviously, should keep in mind that, on the Internet, nothing is really private. It is great advice and I think most people are really careful with what they share.

But I must admit… I wasn’t when I was 16 and Facebook was the newest ‘hot thing’! Our parents were not familiar enough with the modern social networking platforms to guide us on how to use it and as someone hitting puberty, it was quite cool to post that ‘My math teacher is the worst person in the world’. A couple of years later you realize how silly that was and that such thoughts need to be deleted. The same counts for certain pictures, comments, etc. But in how far can you delete this information? To what extent can everything you have EVER posted on the Internet be FORGOTTEN?

That is where the newest right by the EU comes in: The right to be forgotten. It gives individuals the right that certain links that appear on the Internet but are not relevant any more, may be deleted. Online articles that are harmful and irrelevant have to deleted if the person asks for it. Already 150.000 requests for deletion have been submitted and 3402 actually have been deleted. In the Netherlands, 60% of the requests are granted.

This shows the right was urgently needed! I think this is a very modern solution for a problem that exists and will only occur more often as the people who use the Internet are becoming younger and therefore also, more careless and naive. You don’t want to punish individuals’ careers in their 40’s for something they stupidly did when they were just a kid!

The BBC disagrees. They argue that some of the deleted articles were deleted without any good arguments or facts. Therefore, they announced on the 17th, will they make a public list with all the deleted sources. They find that the process of this right should be adapted, e.g. the people who ask for deletion of search results should not remain anonymous.

What do you think about this right? Do you agree with the BBC or with the EU?

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten#Current_legal_frameworks

http://www.nutech.nl/internet/3906141/bbc-publiceert-lijst-met-google-verwijderde-paginas.html

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Last week we learned and read about social networks, the connections between individuals. Everyone has relationships with people we know or, sometimes, may not even know. These connections are important to understand, because they describe the flow and exchange of information. Especially with the rise of social media and other new communication channels, the process of information sharing becomes easier, cheaper and faster. Thus, the network of connections grows and becomes more complicated.

However, networks are not always social. There are countless other networks, e.g. for businesses. For a business, it is important to know where you stand in the network, what your role is, what content you share and receive as well as how you can use this information to create a competitive advantage. Because I am interested in the business networks, I read several articles on business articles and stumbled upon Larry Hawes ‘Types of Business Networks’ on Forbes.com.

Hawes (2010) named several industries for business networks, namely voice, financial, supply, transportation, retail, service, content, social. Two interesting sectors are retail and transportation. Due to the fast development of technology, transportation is also becoming cheaper and faster. A French customer can order a jacket from Australia and let it ship to England, for example. The network of transportation thus is responsible for the movement of goods around the world and is very complex. Well-known examples of package distribution examples are FedEx, DHL, etc. According to Hawes (2010) there are two types of retail networks: networks affiliated with one brand or and others that sell goods from other brands. HP, for example, sells their products through multiple partners, whereas McDonalds only sells its own products.

Kauffman et al (2010) pointed out that each company in a network contributes to its network differently and therefore there might not be fair value sharing. Based on this idea, would you argue that it is smarter for a company to minimize their network or maximize their network? By operating in a small network, a business is less dependent on other companies but increases competition. By operating in a large network, you might be the company that contributes more value (and thus, money), you are more dependent, but you also have more cooperations which decreases competition and assures safety…

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A recent article on NU.nl discusses the fact that Facebook is forcing users to use their real names (as stated on their Passport) for their personal profiles. The users who are most commonly addressed are Drag Queens, men who dress like women and thus create a female profile with a fake name. If they do not use their real name, Facebook closes down their account and requires them to send documents with which their real name can be verified. According to Facebook, Pages can be used for other names, like artist names, but not personal profiles.

As the Facebook case suggested, privacy is a major issue for many users and everyone wants to avoid that their names, information or pictures are used for other purposes, such as fake profiles or advertising. However, to what extent are Drag Queen profiles fake? One could consider them as simply another version of themselves, perhaps a version they feel more comfortable with when communicating with people on Facebook. Even though the profile is not based on a real name, one cannot consider it a fake profile. There are countless of Facebook users who only choose to share a part of their truth, who hide behind slightly different names or who share wrong information.

In my opinion, Facebook is contradicting itself by forbidding something that social media platforms are actually meant for: Reflecting an image of oneself, in most cases an image that does not reflect reality or is an enhanced version of reality. So, Facebook, why start here and limit the freedom of Drag Queens? There are countless of other privacy issues that could be addressed first.

I am eager to hear what you think about Facebook closing down ‘fake’ profiles!

Source: http://www.nu.nl/internet/3876812/facebook-verplicht-dragqueens-echte-naam-gebruiken.html

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Over the past years, the rise of social media has disrupted many businesses and has lead to unavoidable changes in the market (Rigby, 2010). Companies are not only shifting their stores online, but they need to add social features in order to maintain a competitive advantage. This phenomenon is called social commerce. A lot of research has been conducted on the business benefits, online purchasing behavior, website elements and consumers’ needs in order to create tools and strategies for social commerce.

In his paper ‘The Future of Shopping’ Rigby (2011) addresses this disruption and proposes several reactions for traditional retailers. He suggests that businesses need to combine the physical and the digital landscapes in order to create the optimal shopping environment (Rigby, 2011). Zhu et al (2010) agree with this statement and elaborate on the concept of collaborative shopping, which is the most important component when shopping in a physical environment but can also be applied to the digital world through navigation systems and communication support. Marsden (2010) points out the widely shared strategy of ‘putting water coolers next to tills’ and ‘putting tills next to water coolers’, meaning that companies can either let people connect where they buy or allowing them to buy where they connect. He also explains theories on how to optimize the use of social features and how various elements influence the decision-making process of the consumers, such as power and authority (Marsden, 2010). However, there are many more factors that influence the purchasing behavior of consumers, such as the needs of consumers (Huan et al, 2013), the strength of various networks (Jian et al 2014 & Rapp et al, 2013), design features (Huan et al, 2014) and customer loyalty (Lian et al, 2011).

These tools and strategies can be illustrated by the cases of Fashion ID and Modcloth, fashion retailers who have added social features to their e-commerce website. Fashion ID connects to a social network (Facebook) to ask for friends’ opinions and Modcloth integrates an interactive tool to vote outfits into production. Thus, Fashion ID relies on a strong and highly influential network, collaborative shopping and emotional support, whereas Modcloth relies on their customer loyalty, similar characteristics of their users and unique design features in order to increase purchases. All social commerce tools display different strengths and weaknesses, but, as the articles suggest, implementing social commerce can in fact never be a weakness and can only contribute to a company’s success.

List of Sources

1. Huang Z., Benyoucef M. 2013. From e-commerce to social commerce: A close look at design feature. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12, 246-259.

2. Huang Z., Benyoucef, M. 2014. User preferences of social features on social commerce websites: An empirical study. Journal of Technological Forecast and Social Change. Source: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2014.03.005

3. Jiang G., Ma, F., Shang H., Chau P.Y.K. 2014. Evolution of knowledge sharing behavior in social commerce: An agent-based computational approach. Journal of Information Sciences, 238, 250-266.

4. Liang, T.P., Ho, Y., Li, Y. Efraim, T. 2011. What drives social commerce: The Role of Social Support and Relationship Quality. Journal of Electronic Commerce. Source: http://mesharpe.metapress.com/content/dx86j20g61vn30t4/

5. Marsden, P. 2010. Social commerce: Monetizing social media. Syzygy Group. White Paper. http://socialcommercetoday.com/documents/Syzygy_2010.pdf

6. Rapp A., Beitelspacher, L.S., Grewal D., Hughes, D.E. Understanding social media effects across seller, retailer and consumer interactions. Academy of Marketing Science, 41, 547-566. DOI: 10.1007/s11747-013-0326-9

7. Rigby, D. 2011. The future of shopping. Harvard Business Review 89(12) 64-75.

8. Zhu, L., Benbasat, I., and Jiang, Z. 2010. Let’s shop online together: An Empirical investigation of collaborative online shopping support. Information Systems Research 21(4) 872-891.
9. http://www.practicology.com/blog/social-commerce-five-great-examples/