INTRODUCTION TO Type Public Traded as NASDAQ: FB Founded February 4, 2004 (10 years ago) Headquarters Menlo Park, California, US Area served United States (2004 – – 05) Worldwide (2005 – – present) Founder(s) Andrew McCollum Key people Mark Zuckerberg (Chairman and CEO) (COO) Industry Internet Revenue US$7.87 billion (2013) Operating income US$2.80 billion (2013) Net income US$1.50 billion (2013) Total assets US$17.89 billion (2013) Total equity US$15.47 billion (2013) Employees 7,185 (June 2014)

Subsidiaries WhatsApp VR PrivateCore

Website facebook.com

Written in C++, PHP and D language

Alexa rank 2 (September 2014)

Type of site Social networking service

Registration Required

Users 1.28 billion (monthly active, March 2014)

Available in Multilingual (70) FACEBOOK CASE STUDY

• In November 2007, social media giant, Facebook introduced a controversial marketing ploy, the Beacon tool.

• The tool immediately drew criticism from the online community, claiming violation of privacy and breach of user agreement by the company.

• Beacon was applied to all Facebook users by default

• Users were not permitted to disable all data sharing activity and Beacon tracked activity every time Facebook users accessed a partner website

• To bring additional money to shareholders, this tool promised potential financial innovation. PROBLEM OF THE CASE AND RELEVANCE TO BUSINESS ETHICS

• The moral issue of the case centers on privacy concerns Beacon, which is embedded into a Facebook partner’s

• The information of the user would be made available to the other user.

• Which would reduce the privacy of the user and would make it more of public to the user.

• As per the business ethics sharing of the personal context of the people is an illegal offence which makes facebook and beacon a part of business unethical practices.

CHALLENGES FACED BY FACEBOOK

• Lawsuits from those who feel their privacy rights have been violated.

• Loss in revenue generation.

• Alternative way to generate revenue if they quit beacon.

• Develop an alternative solution to generate revenue. Questions

Q.1 Why does social networking website appeal to so many people? What are people gaining and sacrificing by using social networking website?

Q.2 What ethical issue’s does beacon raise for facebook and its various stakeholders? Q.3 Do you support Mark Zuckerberg’s position that Beacon is merely a natural technological extension of word of mouth referrals or the facebook critics position that beacon is an unwarranted commercialized invasion of privacy? Explain your position?

Q.4 In your view, how, is at all, can the battle between facebook advertiser and facebook user is resolved? CONCLUSION

• Not to hurt the personal feeling of the users they just introduce beacon

• To generate revenue and aid companies for advertising there new products

• But after the complains they realize that they don’t have to revel the personal data of the users without their permission.