"The Circle" comes to life

In 2013 David Eggers' book The Circle paints a chilling near future that describes a company that houses most of the world's social media activity, search data, and commercial transactions.

Facebook's recently announced plan to integrate Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger is a significant step to making Eggers' fiction become reality. This will integrate 2.6 billion users across the three platforms.

While this might allow users to more easily communicate, think of the profound impact it will have on other areas of digital activity. Facebook's grip on users data across these platforms will be strengthened and the activity that users take on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp will no longer occur under three distinct platforms.

The former founders of WhatsApp and Instagram have recently resigned, under both explicit and tacit protest, being replaced by top executives from Facebook.

From Facebook's perspective it makes sense. To more easily manage (and build a business around) one distinct platform vs. three is logical. Additionally, Facebook has planned to extend encryption around all of the messages of users across Instagram and Facebook Messenger (it is the default for WhatsApp).  It would theoretically make it harder to build a data machine for advertisers if the company can't read the specific words in your messages. However, given that Facebook is a world leader at mining meta-data, this shouldn't assuage any fears that the company will not be in a better position to track - and eventually exploit - all of your activity.

Time for regulation? The FTC correct decision to force Microsoft to allow users to download the browser of their choosing in the early 2000s spells hope that the government is sophisticated enough to regulate a cutting edge technology company. Whether the government is sophisticated enough to remain open long enough to advance anti-trust proceedings is a different story. With Facebook now consolidating the the world's two largest social media applications and the world's largest messaging application - it is time to officially investigate the possibility of anti-trust violations.