Social Network Security – When will we reach the tipping point?

Bruce Schneier posted a link to an article on Facebook Privacy.   A couple of days earlier, Mario Sundar of LinkedIn posted an article on Security and Privacy on LinkedIn.

It’s fascinating that the security people are starting to pay attention to social networks.  Social networks have always had privacy and security risks.  In fact, they have much bigger privacy risks than typical websites where people have accounts.  E-commerce sites usually don’t show interesting information about where you work, your children’s names, the clubs you belong to, etc.

I’ve been keeping an eye on the progression of social network sites.  Having been responsible for user security on a website for three years, I understand the tradeoffs that have to be made.  Social networks are at the stage where attracting more people to join the social network is much more important than making sure that those users are safe.

I’ve definitely heard cases where marketing teams will tell the security group that protecting millions of users is not nearly as important as attracting millions more users to the website.   The e-commerce websites are starting to learn a valuable lesson, though: having a website that does not protect its users’ privacy and security will scare away users faster than it attracts them.  I’ve talked to several e-commerce companies lately that say they are ramping up their security teams to make sure that their customers have a positive experience.  It’s great to see the priority shifting from gaining new customers to keeping the current customers safe.

My question is: how long will it take for the social network sites to make the same choices?   Since internet time accelerates faster than normal time, my guess is that what took e-commerce companies 5-10 years will likely take social network sites 2-3 years.  I’ve heard rumblings of social network sites placing a priority on security, even if it means a few less registrations, but I don’t have any direct evidence.  If anyone has any anecdotes they’d be willing to share or predictions on how long it will be until we reach the tipping point, I’d be happy to hear them.

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