Our response to recent publicity concerning social media and misuse of personal data

Recent publicity concerning social media and the misuse of personal data online.
A statement from Nigel Bridges, MD of Beaconsoft Ltd.
I am sure you will be aware of the press coverage over the last week or so surrounding Facebook and the issues of privacy and misuse of personal data online. At the time of writing Facebook has dropped over 10% off its stock valuation this week.
When setting out to develop our Beacon product we were very aware of transparency issues within the social media world. One of the key issues is this: if a consumer cannot trust the social media platform then how will they trust a business that uses that social media platform to connect with them?
Beaconsoft is committed to driving transparency, authenticity and honesty into the use of social media for business purposes. Our goal is to create an environment within which consumers can trust the organisations and businesses that use our Beacon software product to drive their social media marketing campaigns.
But it’s not just consumers that have to confront issues of transparency and honesty in the social media world. This applies also to businesses.
Recent press coverage has indicated that businesses are threatening to slash their online advertising budgets as a lack of transparency is causing questions to be asked about the true accuracy and honesty of the impressions, clicks and conversions reported by social media platforms. This so-called ‘Ad Fraud’ is a growing issue in online marketing.
We are very concerned about this issue. Our primary area of focus was and remains the ability of businesses to use social media effectively to reach their target audience whilst doing so transparently and honestly.
Tens of billions of pounds is spent each year on social media and website advertising. Businesses need and deserve more honesty and certainty about the effectiveness of the online advertising that they are paying for. From day one, Beacon’s goal was to accurately track the impact of both paid-for and organic social media posts, enabling marketers to be more discerning about how they spend their time and advertising budget.
To summarise; Beacon is a software platform that is independent of any social media platform or web search organisation. We are committed to enabling online transparency, authenticity and honesty so that any business or individual consumer, in their roles of providers and recipients of social media marketing, can enjoy a high degree of trust in this vital online relationship.