Rational E.T.
In another case of a newspaper failing to realise that any annoyance will drive readers to competitors, the UK newspaper The Guardian has launched a Facebook app through which to read their articles. Now if someone posts a link to a Guardian article on Facebook, users clicking on the link will be taken to a Facebook App page, instead of being taken directly to the article. The Facebook App page is designed to make you think that you need to install the Guardian Facebook App to read the article.
It is not true. You can just click cancel, and it will take you to the article. Do not add the Guardian Facebook App.
The Guardian Facebook App is a terrible idea for many reasons.
- It breaks navigation. When I click on a link I expect to be taken to the page directly. The concept of hyperlink is precisely this, and I do not see why companies try to change that by putting additional hurdles. A link is a link.
- It publishes all Guardian links you click on to your profile. If you click on any Guardian link on Facebook, it will publish it on your wall and in your friends’ feeds. All your friends know what you are reading (Facebook already did), and are being spammed with that useless info. This can be customised in the app, but full disclosure of your reading behaviour is the default setting of the app. Of course because in this way you induce your friends to add the app themselves. Pyramidal marketing 101?
- You allow The Guardian to access all the information contained in your Facebook profile. Think about your profile and ask yourself whether you want the Guardian to know your demographics, who you are connected with, how often do you post, how often do you cite their articles, etc.
If it is such a bad idea, why do they do it?
- It works. People are actually fooled into thinking they need the App to access the articles. Many users probably expect that the “Cancel” button would take them back to their FB stream, instead of actually accessing the article they were hoping for in the first place. This is amplified by the fact that if your friends use the application, it will spam your feed, so chances are you will end up clicking one of those damned link.
- The Guardian can access a lot of data about their users, which means that they can target the ads on their website better, which means they can charge more for it, which means they make more money. You are money my friend. This is made pretty clear in their Privacy policy.
- I suspect The Guardian had to pay Facebook for the privilege of asking them to redirect all the Guardian links to the Guardian App.
- It increases the level of information your Facebook friends have about what you do, and the more you share with your friends (willingly or not), the better it is for Facebook. This is what they market to their users after all. Facebook thinks that you should be sharing everything with everyone, pretty much. If you didn’t, it would be a pretty boring place and you could never stalk that cute girl from your History class.
Hopefully people will snap out of it and give the fingers to The Guardian.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
If you want to share The Guardian links on Facebook without spamming the app to people who click on them, just add “?fb=optout” at the end (replacing “?newsfeed=true” if present), like so:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/25/google-transparency-report-released?fb=optOut
Thanks, this is very helpful!
L, you are the bomb. Thank you!
I said below that the ?fb=optout option doesn’t work. Just in case, it does work, but it’s case sensitive, so if it’s written like in your link, ?fb=optOut, it will work. Thanks for the tip if you read this!
Hi there. Guardian web developer here, worked on the FB app.
Not quite sure I agree about the “driving to competitors” aspect of your argument. The stats of the app’s usage are pretty interesting reading and we’re actually finding that we’re reaching new people who would previously never have found our content. Obviously for people like yourself then the idea of the app doesn’t appeal, but you can opt-out within the app and you’ll never see it again.
The “cancel” button is Facebook’s UI and we have limited/no control over that. I agree it could be more transparent.
We *don’t* have access to everything in your profile. The app explicitly outlines the information we require when you install it. There’s no trickery: users can agree, or opt-out. We only take the minimum needed to run the app.
You’re completely wrong about the payment aspect too. The Guardian can detect on our own end whether the user came from Facebook, and send them back to the app when they visit the site.
I understand scepticism, but let’s be clear about the facts: it’s a one-click opt-out; we’re not storing your entire profile’s data and, shock horror – the app is actually quite interesting and fun to use.
Hi Matt,
First of all, thank you very much for stopping by and leaving your comments and counter-arguments. No doubt you are very knowledgeable about the app itself!
I am sure you do not have access to everything in the Facebook profile. I am also familiar with the classical argument: we warn people, therefore they accept at their own risk. However I think it does not hold for two reasons:
A. Your privacy policy is extremely vague concerning the type of data you actually collect:
In this case, I think the best practice from a user point of view is to assume the worst. Especially since you have just admitted that you can identify new readers from old ones.
B. Many people actually do not read the privacy policy. (Mostly because people choose the shortest path of least resistance when navigating, so that unless you force them to go through the privacy policy before adding the app, most of them would even click the link to it.) If you have access to the logs of your web servers, I would be curious to know how the number of people reading the Privacy policy compares with the number of people adding the app.
Two final criticisms of the app:
– As you mentioned, it is an opt-out system. I am very much in favour of an open Web, where intermediary apps do not break the whole link. The app is an annoyance from the user point of view, since it requires them to opt-out of something to revert back to the consensual working of the Web (i.e. that a links takes you to the corresponding webpage). There is nothing more frustrating in terms of user experience than a website where you think you’re about to access something and THEN discover that you have to perform some extra operations (sit through an advert, close a popup, opt-out, log in, sign up, pay) to access the actual content.
– The Guardian app generates externalities on users who do not use it. Now my Facebook wall is full of “XYZ read article ‘Car accident on the M25′ on the Guardian” updates on Facebook. And there is no way to block this without blocking all the updates of those people (not your fault I know, but it’s pretty annoying). The default should be that this is not published to other people’s wall. When you say that the app is quite interesting and fun to use, I am sure you are giving your own personal opinion, but this is neglecting the fact that users who do not want to use the app and do opt-out (like me) are still affected by other people’s decisions, and the app default setting of “Full publication”.
I hope these comments all make sense.
PS: The driving to competitors might not alas not be as true as I thought. I wish people would vote with their feet when they don’t like something. Unfortunately, competition is too differentiated in the market for daily newspapers, hence people prefer sticking to the Guardian even if they are annoyed with some bits. But I think this is minor from my POV since I don’t have financial stakes at the GNM.
Just a quick update to show how “fun” the Guardian app is. Last people who arrived to this blog post were googling (I didn’t select, just copied/pasted):
- “articles read on guardian end up on facebook”
- “guardain articles are not posting to facebook feed”
- “block the guardian app on facebook”
- “guardian app shows which articles facebook”
- “guardian article facebook wall posts”
and the last is the best:
- “why are guardian articles on facebook”
I found this page by Googling “facebook how to share guardian article without app”
I found you while looking for info about this ridiculous app.
The comment from the developer above is almost insulting. Does he think we’re idiots?
This app is 100% pointless and is just another reason that I ask myself on a daily basis “how much longer will I bother with facebook?”
[...] topical knowledge in the general public then who’s to say it’s a bad thing? Well, here’s a good place to [...]
I also found this page while googling privacy implications about the app.
I personally find the apple intrusive, yet it’s one of those I would rather not block. That’s a personal opinion and fair enough.
My main concern is that it also shows everyone what has been read…. I’ve had some very insightful thoughts about my friends on facebook that I would have never have paid time to – I wonder if they know I know they have an usual fetish? Not that I care too much about their potion of love but the broader privacy regarding politics, religion and lifestyle are concerning
Matt Andrews says:
“you can opt-out within the app and you’ll never see it again.”
You, sir, are lying. The only way to “never see it again” would be to block the app but it is not possible to block the Guardian app at all. Add in to this the fact that there is no cancel button on the app installation page despite the page saying there is one and you’ll see why so many people are distrustful of you and the app itself. The only way to get out of it is to click back or close the page which solves nothing because the next time you click on a friend’s link to a Guardian story you get taken back to the app installation page again.
Why don’t I like the app? Because it squishes all the text into a narrow column which makes it incredibly difficult to read for someone with my disabilities and none of the links work properly. And I don’t trust the incredibly vague privacy policy.
. . .
I just found how to block the app. It works using a friend’s account with Firefox but not mine on Chrome. The Guardian’s app page displays completely differently on our accounts/browsers.
The downside to blocking the app is that I can no longer click on any friends’ links to Guardian webpages in or out of the app because I get taken to Facebook page saying I’ve blocked the app. C&Ping the link doesn’t work either. Thank goodness for “inspect element” however having to click on that every single time I wish to read an article a friend has posted is such a waste of time. Why can’t Guardian links on Facebook just go straight to the Guardian website where the text is legible? What do Guardian web developers have against people with disabilities and a mistrust of apps with vague privacy policies?
I apologise if the above makes little sense but I haven’t slept properly for several days due to illness related pain.
There are good reasons for not installing any Facebook apps (much easier than trying to control their settings case by case), so that’s the policy I now follow. I like The Guardian, and I’m often interested in articles that people post on Facebook, but not so interested that I want to take the trouble to examine the details of an application’s terms of use, or check regularly for changes that may have been made since I last looked. The app adds a fuss factor to something that should be simple. In my case, the result of the app is that I am unlikely to click on a Facebook link to Guardian articles.
@Lauren:
Not sure if you’ll ever see this, but let me clarify something: Facebook were previously A/B testing the opt-in box for the app (this may be why your friend’s browser showed different options), and at one stage removed the ‘cancel’ option. We had no control over this and were as concerned as you understandably were. They’ve now reverted this decision, so you should be able to opt out as normal. Equally, if you click a friend’s Guardian link, assuming you’ve opted out, you should receive a cookie which means you’ll never be redirected into the app again. If this still isn’t the case, please contact userhelp@guardian.co.uk with a bug report and we’ll examine this in detail.
With regards to the text being squashed — we render articles in exactly the same width that we do on guardian.co.uk. The font is slightly different (we use a more “Facebook” typography treatment) but the actual space an article gets is the same as always.
Hope this helps.
Matt
One of the most annoying apps I know. Why can’t the Guardian simply have an app that people can choose to install if they search for it. You know, like most organisations. I still get plagued by this app every time I click on a guardian link despite selecting no every single time.
Opt in would be far better than opt out in my opinion.
The text presented when clicking a link is deceptive. it suggests that installing the app is required to read the article. The number of friends spamming my wall with this app got beyond a joke. Needless to say it is now blocked and I never see the spammy guardian crap now – which is probably what most users will do in the end too.
Just found this googling “the guardian links to facebook app” I decided to link to another website instead. It’s VERY intrusive, and as of now, it’s not “one click” cancellation. After clicking on the “cancel” button instead of the “okay, read article” one, it takes me to ANOTHER Guardian app page (the main one) where I need to click on “no thanks” instead of an absolutely MISLEADING “Add app to continue.
By the way the ?=fboptout option, if it worked before, surely doesn’t now.