December 30, 2009 by James Oliver
As anyone with an internet connection, or who has been around someone under thirty recently, knows, facebook’s success over the past few years has been unparalleled. This year alone it has jumped from 50 million users to 350 million. However, facebook may now be in danger of becoming a victim of its own success as it struggles to deal with the sheer weight of personal data at its disposal.
As more and more people trust Mark Zuckerberg and friends with their highly sensitive information, world governments are starting to take more and more notice of facebook. A couple of high profile incidents haven’t helped, namely a $9.5 million dollar lawsuit settlement over an intrusive advertising system and a series of changes to privacy settings that have been widely criticised and even led to an official complain being filed with the US regulator.
This is why Facebook has been steadily amassing a healthy lobbying presence in both Washington and Brussels in order to put across their side of the story and try to head off any regulation that might be in the pipeline to curtail their activities.
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