Marketing Pilgrim

Google must be pretty excited that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook have been under intense scrutiny as of late regarding privacy. Why would they celebrate that other than it being a stumbling block to a “frienemy”? The more that Facebook gets the privacy stink eye from the world the less attention can be paid to Google’s own battles over their alleged breaches of privacy.

Google has been under scrutiny by Germany regarding their collection of wireless network data that occurred while their little Google Maps mobiles went around taking pictures of the world. Now Canada can be added to the list of countries that are looking into this practice. We know from past experience that Canada fights hard when it comes to privacy concerns (just ask Facebook).

Reuters reports:

Google is a real all or nothing proposition most of the time. They either completely dominate something (search) or they barely make a dent (Google Buzz and social media). One area that they continue to dominate in and there is no real relief in site for competitors is the delivery of video content. I’ll let the picture from comScore tell the story from April of this year.

This kind of dominance is just as impressive as the search share lead that Google continues to hold over its competition. With video becoming more and more important in the business world this dominance stands to increase as well which can be disheartening to the competition.

This story was never a matter of if someone would take Facebook to court over the use of their data but it was just a matter of when. Well, I can’t say definitively that we have a winner but a case in California (go figure, right?) comes on the heels of the all the privacy hubbub surrounding Facebook as of late. Since timing is everything this case will get attention.

MediaPost reports

A California Facebook user has sued the social networking company for allegedly sharing his personal information with advertisers.

In a complaint filed late last week in federal district court in San Jose, David Gould of South Lake Tahoe alleges that Facebook violated its own privacy policy by disclosing to advertisers a host of information about users who click on ads, including their real names, current cities, schools attended and friend lists. Gould is seeking class-action status.

The Walt Disney Company is doing more than wishing upon a star that their new release “Toy Story 3” will have success at the box office. While the movie doesn’t open until June 18 Disney is using their Facebook presence to pre-sell tickets and create buzz for Buzz Lightyear and company.

The New York Times reports

The Walt Disney Company has created what it believes is a first-of-its-kind application allowing Facebook users to buy tickets to “Toy Story 3” without leaving the social networking site and while, at the same time, prodding their friends to come along.

The application, called Disney Tickets Together, could transform how Hollywood sells movie tickets by combining purchases with the powerful forces of social networking. When you buy a ticket through Disney’s application, for instance, it alerts your Facebook friends and prompts you to invite them to buy tickets of their own.

A while back, I wrote a post on Marketing Pilgrim about online marketing in India. That very same day, and through no conscious decision, I decided to eat at Tarka, my local Indian restaurant. While sitting at the table enjoying naan and chicken kabobs I noticed a card on my table that said

Join our email list and get 10% off your next visit. Use our free wifi to sign up now!

To be fair, I wasn’t overly surprised to see this as Tarka is the only non-chain restaurant I know of with their own iPhone app; however, I was encouraged to see evidence that this small restaurant is engaging their patrons through email marketing and apparently they’re not alone.

Facebook can’t seem to buy a break these days. It’s almost as if the privacy powers that be are reaching out and making life difficult for the social media giant just because they can. Could anything be worse than the string of bad reports that have dogged Facebook for the past couple of weeks? Not quite but this latest issue isn’t something that Facebook will like .

According to Mashable

Is your website experiencing problems with Facebook’s Like buttons? Don’t worry, it’s not just you and Facebook is working on a solution.

The problem that seems to be impacting potentially thousands of sites is that clicking on a Like button results in an error stating “The page [page URL] cannot be reached.” A bug has been filed with Facebook and the developers status page indicates that the company is actively working on a solution.