Trust Archives - John Sileo, Cyber Security Training

User Distrust at Heart of Facebook Troubles

Satisfaction with social-networking powerhouse Facebook has slumped, according to the latest survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index — hitting a new record-low score in the social media category that placed it in the five lowest-scoring companies out of more than 230 surveyed. There are several immediate factors that undermine user trust:

Inconsistency. Facebook’s user interface changes constantly (think Timeline) and this inconsistency leaves users feeling like they don’t know what to expect next from the social media site. Consistency builds trust, but Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to have much vision for consistency.
Lack of Transparency. The average user has very little comfort with or knowledge about how Facebook is collecting, analyzing, using and selling their personal data. While Facebook has a range of privacy and security settings, most users still don’t comprehend the enormity of the information that Facebook collects on them. This lack of transparency leaves users with a bad taste in their mouth, like they are being cleverly deceived for the sake of profit.

Zappos Breach: 5 (Foot)Steps for the CEO, 6 for Victims

Let’s say you ordered winter boots for your spouse on Zappos.com (now part of Amazon), which has world-class customer service. You don’t really even shop the competition because someplace in your brain you already trust Zappos to deliver as they always have. Your unquestioned confidence in Zappos is worth a fortune.

And then hackers break in to a server in Kentucky this past weekend and steal private information on 24 million Zappos customers, including (if you are a customer) your name, email address, physical address, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number and an encrypted version (thank goodness) of your password. Consequently, your junk email folder is overflowing (your email has been illicitly sold to marketing companies), you receive the doom-and-gloom breach notification from Zappos (just like I did), and suddenly, you don’t have quite the same confidence in this best-in-practice business any more. Your shaken confidence in Zappos costs them a fortune. For the foreseeable future, you will pause before using their website again.

What Larussa’s Botched Bullpen Call Teaches About Trust

St. Louis Manager Tony La Russa changing course mid-stream (Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)

During Monday night’s World Series game, Tony La Russa, the coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, failed to warm up the right-handed relief pitcher he desperately needed to face the Texas Rangers red-hot right-handed batter, Mike Napoli. Napoli, with the games announcers in complete disbelief at the oversight, took advantage of the mistake, drilling the pitch into right center field for a double. The Texas Rangers went up 4-2 and won the game.

Directly following the game, La Russa blamed the dugout phone, the bullpen coach (indirectly) and the noisy crowd for his failure to warm up the right guy. Within minutes, you could almost hear the simultaneous guffaw of the entire sports world, “It’s the phone’s fault?”. Our collective BS meters went off because in some way, we sensed he was covering something up.