Facebook (FB) Stock: FB Falls Slightly Amid Controversial Email Change Policy

Culture

Facebook (FB) stock fell 3% - down 99 cents to close at $32.06 – Monday after a stunning comeback that lifted the stock to its highest point since the second day it was traded (May 21). The drop will do little to reverse the good momentum achieved by the social network which shares have been up on the last 13 days, after the same number of days trending downwards, since its controversial IPO.

However, Facebook’s amazing recovery – helped by a series of news from the company about new advertising features to sustain and increase its revenue – could face a new obstacle due to the social network’s newest and controversial moves. Firstly, Facebook hijacked its users email addresses by substituting them for new email addresses with the users' public user names followed by @facebook.com. This new emails were created and are displayed without notice or permission.

The second development has to do with a geo-location featured which Facebook “quietly released, then quietly pulled” called “Friends Nearby.” The feature would give users a landing page on which to find other users who are within “a certain vicinity.” This would be the second intent by Facebook of stepping into location-based application Foursquare’s share of the market. The first attempt was “Facebook Places,” killed just one year after its launch.

Facebook now finds itself having to perform a careful balancing act between reassuring investors with moves and policies that demonstrate the company’s ability to capitalize on its growing mobile audience, and not pissing off users with a social media experience full of privacy concerns and invasive advertising tools.