A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press-CNBC shows that Facebook has a long way to go in earning the trust of their users. Nearly 60 percent of people questioned had little or no trust in Facebook’s ability to keep their personal information private.
36 percent of those polled had a favorable opinion of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg while another 30 percent didn’t have an opinion one way or another. Nine percent had never heard of him and 11 percent didn’t know or refused to answer. That said, only 18 percent of people were confident in his ability to run Facebook.
On the topic of Facebook’s continued success, 43 percent felt that the social network will continue to be successful. The majority of people, 46 percent, felt that the company would eventually fade away as new things come along to replace it. These people seem to feel that Facebook is the next MySpace in terms of popularity.
With regards to the pending initial public offering that could take place as early as this week, half of those polled felt the company was overvalued. Despite this, 51 percent of Americans felt that buying shares in Facebook would be a good investment.
Overall, only 51 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of the company while 23 percent felt an unfavorable feeling. Tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Google all scored a 71 percent favorable opinion in the same poll.
Data from the poll was collected between May 3 and May 7, 2012 via 1,004 telephone interviews. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 3.9 percent.
