The Trust Foundation Understanding trust issues in the digital era.

[This is another highlight from our Knowledge@Wharton series focusing on trust issues.]

"...trust harmed by untrustworthy behavior can be effectively restored when individuals observe a consistent series of trustworthy actions...making a promise to change behavior can help speed up the trust recovery process."

In "Promises, Lies and Apologies: Is It Possible to Restore Trust?", the above research findings are discussed, the result of recent studies by Wharton researchers. Although the findings are based on a money game designed to simplify observations of test subjects, there are some real world consequences. The researchers comment, "Managers working to rebuild trust should be sure that people observe their trustworthy behavior," and go on to conclude, "...we find that when it comes to trust, actions matter, but they do not always speak louder than words."

I'm reminded of one notable online company's embodiment of this advice--Facebook. Back when Facebook first introduced its Feeds and Mini-Feeds features, in which the actions of users are reported to their friends in the minutest detail, Facebook faced a huge backlash from its users, who felt that their trust of Facebook with their information had been betrayed (whether or not it had been is not the point, we're talking about perception here). Facebook users flocked to join anti-Feeds groups (and even anti-Facebook groups) on Facebook, with some groups gaining tens of thousands of users per hour at the peak of the backlash. There was no doubt that users who at one time had trusted Facebook were now beginning to feel they had been lied to about the protection of their actions on the site. Facebook gracefully recovered by immediately apologizing *and* promising to implement enhanced privacy control tools. By the time Facebook had loaded these new controls about a week later, users discomfort had mostly died down; today, the Feeds feature largely defines Facebook, and is even being copied by its more popular rival, MySpace.

Just earlier this month, Facebook repeated the above cycle. It introduced an advertising system known as Beacon which automatically announced user actions on sites outside of the Facebook.com domain on the above-mentioned Feeds. Suddenly, the DVDs people were renting and the food they were ordering (for example) were no longer private, and again, users felt that their trust of Facebook had been betrayed. A similar backlash ensued, followed by a similar apology, promise to change privacy control, and swift implementation of such controls.

Is Facebook so out of touch with its user base that it periodically, accidentally makes mistakes that violate the trust of its users? Or is it perhaps hoping for users to accept radical changes to traditional expectations (when it is advantageous to Facebook), knowing full well that if users aren't ready to accept the changes, Facebook can gracefully recover any trust that is broken in pursuit of its gambles?

I wonder if knowing that trust is not fragile encourages businesses, particularly online ones that can iterate quickly, to be risky with respect to trust issues.