Customer PII - Facebook Messenger

Facebook Messenger Customer PII 

PII, or personally identifiable information, is the security of data and transactions as well as the protection of intellectual property online. Privacy is hard to come by in the digital world today, and is something people take very seriously when using instant messaging programs.


Facebook has always been known as a platform where almost all of your information is public, but how does it messenger stack up? Apparently it's not as safe as we might have imagined, which is not much of a surprise knowing its part of Facebook.

Facebook Privacy: Safe or Not?

It was revealed by a coder in a blog post that a CIA-funded company called Recorded Future appears to be scanning private chat messages in Facebook. The blog later on concluded that the so-called "Facebook privacy" does not really exist.

Recorded Future is an American-Swedish firm that deals with identifying real-time online risks through web-based source collecting and analyzing. Knowing that the firm had also accessed a link on Facebook chat, which is deemed as a secure channel for sending private messages, had somehow brought back the question on how Facebook handles privacy.

In light of this information, it can be easily concluded that Facebook is not handling customer PII very well and to the best of their ability, especially when many people thought Facebook Messenger was secure.

A main element of proper PII is the ability of a business to assure its customers that their data and information are safe, especially in today's world where consumer power and access to information on the internet is at its peak and Facebook would be wise to take that in to account in the future.

Facebook Privacy Efforts

I believe Facebook is not doing enough in order to protect and secure customer PII. As a large company that has been around for a while, it has developed trust among its users but secretly gathers and stores information on their private chats without disclosing it. Facebook has been known to usually guarantee their customers one thing but eventually reveal that they did not stay true to their promise. This is one of the aspects of their company that they need to work on.

Trust is important in any business and an image of a trustworthy company can sometimes cause people to drop their guard.

In the past, Facebook has been known for doing research on their consumers in secret and gathering information on them as well. It would be beneficial for the company to disclose information on their activities to the customers to keep them informed. They could also send requests to customers who would like to volunteer for their surveys and information gathering, as long as they refrain from acting in secret.


Blog Analytics

The overall analytics since my blog started has been a very interesting set of results. When checking  Blogger and Google Analytics, it shows a decrease in views and comments since the beginning. The earlier posts have the most page views and a few comments. The last 3 posts have been at an all time low in terms of page counts and comments. Blogger shows a vast drop in people coming in and viewing / interacting with the blog. This is most likely because the first posts were quick analyses of all three companies with the most information readily available. As the posts went on, they focus on specific companies and very specific topics that people most likely are not interested in.

Differences in Blogger vs Google Analytics

The difference between Blogger and Google Analytics is the amount of viewers and newcomers that are being shown in the statistics results. According to Blogger, the last 3 posts have on average 10-12 people while Google Analytics shows about 20-30. 

The most interesting statistic is that Blogger shows a total of 81 page views, while Google Analytics shows 495 total page views with 85% being new visitors and 15% returning. This is a really vast difference and a large difference of traffic, but both still show the loss of traffic over the past months.

Traffic, Popularity, Improvement

Most of my traffic is coming from the US but several noticeable percentages are coming from Latin America and Canada. I feel that an improvement in the title of the blog and applying a less essay-oriented tone would be of great help and cause an increase of traffic in the future. The traffic is probably coming from these areas because it is a topic relevant to North America as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are widely known and used across the whole continent. These topics and businesses directly impact or connect to everyone from where the traffic is coming from.

The most popular post was the first one most likely because it is the beginning introduction to all the businesses and has the most quick information about all 3 without going very in-depth solely on one.

To improve the reach of my blog in the future I would have to focus on a very interesting topic to a large demographic, especially to people my age. A strategy would be to begin to promote it on my social media platforms and ultimately spread awareness by increasing my online presence

Works Cited
Trent, K. (2015, April 14). Recorded Future and Facebook Chat Messages. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from https://www.recordedfuture.com/facebook-chat-messages/

Webber, M. (2015, May 14). Naked Security. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2014/08/12/why-the-facebook-messenger-app-is-not-the-privacy-nightmare-people-think-it-is/

Online Presence: Line Messenger

Online Presence : Line Messenger

In this blog I will be discussing the overall online presence from Line Messenger through their website and mobile presence.

Line Messenger's online presence at a glance is very strong. As one of Asia's top grossing messaging apps, it has a strong enough presence to be able to acquire this top position and maintain it as well. Due to Line being a messenger app in nature, it thrives off mobile devices. Its main purpose is to be used on the go and to even make free calls when in connection with wifi. This is not to say that their website is weak, they still have a desktop app as well where you can chat from your computer's big screen at home.

Line's ease of access stems off of its great presence. Line has a great website with proper adherence to general good website design principles / guidelines.




As seen on the picture to the left, the website is not cluttered and offers a very similar feel of being in a showroom (like an Apple store) as you scroll down the page and view their different features easily. The site has their most important features and information immediately given to you on the first page and their call to action buttons as well.


Line has a strong presence in the mobile realm, and their sites and presence on mobile devices are well crafted as well. The mobile applications in the store are easy to find. Through the mobile website, you can be redirected in seconds to the app store to find the Line Messenger app. Once downloaded, within the app, you can find their add on apps such as games very easily too. Line also uses good use of advertising as they promote their games on a well crafted banner on the main site showcasing their biggest game. The game section on the website is on the same section as the download button. Their mobile applications are very easy to find and to access.

Thoughts

As an actual user of Line Messenger I would rate their customer experience a 9 out of 10 in overall satisfaction and factoring the ease of access to all of Line's features.

A suggestion for Line's website would be to increase conversions and possibly ease the process of acquiring customers even further, is to emphasize more on the download button. The only slight problem is the top header with all the different actions. The most important button is the 'Download' option and would be great if it was highlighted or surrounded in a glowing / attractive box.

In general, Line's websites both on mobile and online are very clean and very easy to navigate. They have proper links to everything and very immediate information on everything while offering you the option of just skipping straight to the download page.

Google Analytics

Since the launch of my blog several months ago, there has been slight increases in today's statistics. The amount of page views has gone up with every post but in very small quantities, with less and less every blog post. Most of my traffic is coming from the US but several noticeable percentages are coming from Latin America and Canada. I feel that an improvement in the title of the blog and applying a less essay-oriented tone would be of great help and cause an increase of traffic in the future.

Works Cited

Tanada, H. (2014, October 8). LINE : Free Calls & Messages. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://line.me/en/

Shu, C. (2015, January 8). Line Messenger Releases Line Here, Its New Location-Sharing App. Retrieved November 15, 2015, from http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/20/line-here-you-go/