Facebook has long revealed their plans to integrate its big three social media applications Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in a way that makes it easier for the company to manage and deliver value to its customers through simplification. Along with just having even more information about them and thereby been able to target its customers even more.
Depending on which side of the trust curtain you sit on, you will either love the idea or loathe it. It may not matter though because if the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US gets its way, the company will not be allowed to integrate its family of apps according to The Wall Street Journal.
According to the report, officials have grown more and more fearful about the amount of data Facebook already possesses about people and the thought of them tying all that together in one integrated service appears to be a step too far for what many of them are prepared to handle. As a result, they could block the plans and force Facebook down a path of keeping each app independent.
Considering that it is our data to begin with it should actually be the users that decide what happens to it, but then again, if recent elections have taught us anything the power of the masses odes not always lead to great decision making either. Either way, I wouldn’t expect any action on this yet as the likely legal proceedings and litigation on the side could take ages in which time Facebook could have everything tightly integrated and have your collated data anyway.
Last Updated: December 13, 2019
