MooPig Site Review :: "Facebook -- Privacy Enemy Number One?" Part Two

HIGHEST FORMS OF PARODY:
"It's clear why folks would associate this kind of deceptive practice with Zuckerberg. Although Zuckerberg told users back in 2007 that privacy controls are "the vector around which Facebook operates," by January 2010 he had changed his tune, saying that he wouldn't include privacy controls if he were to restart Facebook from scratch. And just a few days ago, a New York Times reporter quoted a Facebook employee as saying Zuckerberg "doesn't believe in privacy". (Jones, Tim. 29.04.2010, HERE)"

Facebook's "Evil Interfaces"
APRIL 29TH, 2010 | Commentary by Tim Jones | Retrieved EXCERPT by Pat Darnell HERE

Social networking companies don't have it easy. Advertisers covet their users' data, and in a niche that often seems to lack a clear business model, selling (or otherwise leveraging) that data is a tremendously tempting opportunity. But most users simply don't want to share as much information with marketers or other "partners" as corporations would like them to. So it's no surprise that some companies try to have it both ways. (Jones, Tim. 29.04.2010, HERE)

Monday evening, after an exasperating few days trying to make sense of Facebook's bizzare new "opt-out" procedures, we asked folks on Twitter and Facebook a question:

The world needs a simple word or term that means "the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to." Suggestions?

And the suggestions rolled in! Our favorites include "bait-and-click", "bait-and-phish", "dot-comfidence games", and "confuser-interface-design".

Although we didn't specifically mention Facebook in our question, by far the most popular suggestions were variations on this one from @heisenthought on Twitter:

How about "zuck"? As in: "That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos. That kinda zucks"

Other suggestions included "Zuckermining", "Infozuckering", "Zuckerpunch" and plenty of other variations on the name of Facebook's Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Others suggested words like "Facebooking", "Facebaiting", and "Facebunk". [read entire article HERE...]
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"As Conti describes it, a good interface is meant to help users achieve their goals as easily as possible. But an "evil" interface is meant to trick users into doing things they don't want to. Conti's examples include aggressive pop-up ads, malware that masquerades as anti-virus software, and pre-checked checkboxes for unwanted "special offers"." (ibid)

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* WINNER :: Seal of Irony