Facebook to simplify privacy controls Wednesday

[dan9999]

Facebook to simplify privacy controls Wednesday
Brandon Griggs, CNN.com Tech Section Producer
CNN
May 25, 2010

Heeding widespread concerns about how much of its users' personal data it shares on the web, Facebook said it will begin implementing simpler privacy settings on Wednesday.

"I can confirm that our new, simpler user controls will begin rolling out tomorrow. I can't say more yet," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNN in an e-mail Tuesday.

Currently, users of the popular social-networking site must navigate through some 170 privacy options. Some Facebook members have said they're confused by the settings, while others have threatened to delete or deactivate their Facebook accounts until the site gives them more control over their info.

Tuesday's announcement suggests Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making good on a recent promise.

"There needs to be a simpler way to control your information," he wrote in an op-ed piece published Monday in the Washington Post. "In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use. We will also give you an easy way to turn off all third-party services."

The recent backlash against Facebook came after the site, which has more than 450 million members, introduced a new tool last month to spread Facebook users' preferences and data to partner sites around the web.

[dan9999]

Facebook backs down on privacy
Omar El Akkad and Jacquie McNish
Globe and Mail
May. 26, 2010 6:20AM EDT

Facing a user backlash that could damage its value to advertisers, social media giant Facebook Inc. is tightening its privacy protections and limiting the flow of data from its users to outside software developers.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is set to release details of the changes Wednesday, days ahead of a fledgling insurrection by thousands of users who had pledged to quit the social network that now boasts more than 400 million active users. Privacy regulators and advocacy groups in Canada, Europe and the United States have criticized recent Facebook innovations that have left customer data more exposed.

The shift is an about-face for Facebook’s brash 26-year-old founder Mark Zuckerberg, who has dismissed privacy as an old-fashioned social norm that is at odds with the ability to profit by giving advertisers and other companies more access to its customers’ data and Web habits.

By bowing to his critics, Facebook appears to be acknowledging that its long-term business plan cannot succeed unless its users are more comfortable with its privacy protections, which many have found confusing and sometimes threadbare.

“We've made a bunch of mistakes,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an e-mail to a technology blog that was published Sunday.

The company’s missteps, he said, reflect Facebook’s rush to innovate. “Sometimes we move too fast – and after listening to recent concerns, we're responding.”

The social network described the pending modifications as way to “simplify” its current maze of privacy settings, which offer users some 170 different options for protecting their information.

Facebook has aggressively pushed to make more of its users’ personal information public in an effort to make the site more alluring to deep-pocketed advertisers that are seeking to pinpoint their marketing campaigns to specific demographic groups.

While other websites such as Blippy openly disregard traditional privacy norms by urging users to reveal credit card purchases, their websites have garnered little criticism or attention because their customer bases are so small.

Facebook, however, has become a lightning rod for Internet privacy anxieties because it has grown from dorm-room novelty at Harvard University in 2004 into the world’s largest social network. Customers and privacy regulators have grown increasingly wary about the safety of personal information and pictures on the social media site because of frequent and confusing innovations or technology glitches that expose data to other users.

Privacy laws in Europe and Canada prohibit companies from revealing customer data, and the United States is moving to impose similar laws this summer. Canada’s Privacy Commissioner was the first regulator to investigate Facebook’s privacy practices and last year it struck a settlement with the social media company to tighten its policies.

Since then, however, the company has introduced a number of changes that have made it harder for users to protect their data and easier for outside companies to access customer information and track their Internet moves. The changes have triggered rebukes from the Privacy Commissioner and European regulators, and has triggered a formal complaint from U.S. advocacy groups to the Federal Trade Commission, which oversees U.S. privacy laws.

“They had every opportunity after the Privacy Commissioner’s investigation to get it right, but instead they continue to push the limits to see what they can get away with,” said David Fewer, an Ottawa University law professor whose 2008 complaint with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) against Facebook triggered the regulator’s investigation.

Some observers say Facebook’s management must now convince its user base that privacy is indeed the company’s top priority. Independent technology analyst Carmi Levy said the social network must focus all its efforts on securing its users’ personal information, or it risks becoming obsolete, as many other such websites have in the past.

“[The privacy concerns are] at the root of a growing sense of discontent with the company,” he said. “Facebook is at an inflection point: Either they make fundamental changes in their culture or they risk becoming the next Friendster.

“You only have so many chances with consumers and businesses alike before they seek alternatives.”

In an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Monday, Mr. Zuckerberg blamed the backlash on the company’s overly confusing privacy settings.

“Simply put, many of you thought our controls were too complex,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote. “Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark.”

[ft@t@lk™]

c/p TechNewsWorld
By Richard Adhikari
TechNewsWorld
05/27/10 2:31 PM PT

The new privacy controls Facebook announced Wednesday were met with criticism the following day from privacy groups that called the new policies inadequate.

In a conference call on Thursday, representatives of the groups insisted on a Federal Trade Commission investigation of the social networking giant and regulatory oversight.

They also questioned Facebook's commitment to privacy and its honesty.


What Privacy Controls?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that the social networking site is making its privacy controls simpler. He also expressed his company's desire to make no further changes to its privacy settings in the immediate future.

"The whole process raises questions about Facebook's actual commitment to privacy," said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "If you review the press release Facebook put out last December claiming to provide user privacy, you'll see that it in fact let it collect more user information."

Those December changes led the Electronic Privacy Information Center, together with the Center for Digital Democracy, the American Library Association, the Consumer Federation of America and other privacy organizations, to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Facebook must develop privacy controls for its virtual currency and location products, among other features, and install opt-in policies for general information and personalization, Chester said.

"Despite procedural improvements made as a result of Facebook's new privacy rules, the substance remains unchanged," said Joe W. (Chip) Pitts III, president of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. "They're constant with Mark Zuckerberg's mission to share information more widely."

"If Facebook were sincere about privacy, the default mode for privacy would be minimal information about everything," pointed out John M. Simpson of Consumer Watchdog.

Honesty Is Such a Lonely Word
The participants also questioned Facebook's honesty.

"There are still substantial questions about the deceptiveness of Facebook's approach to these issues, particularly with reference to the latest announcement on privacy controls," Pitts from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) said.

"I don't think we have any reason to trust this company now based on their behavior," Consumer Watchdog's Simpson added. "The whole process shows something of the Silicon Valley mindset that Facebook and Google follow -- you push the envelope as far as you can, grab as much data as you can, and then, when there's pushback, you do something else."

Participants in the conference call also criticized Facebook's stance that people who opt in to its site voluntarily provide their information, and so they implicitly consent to having their information published.

"A large majority of Facebook users are minors, and you can't raise the issue of consent if people don't understand the implications of their actions," pointed out Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal. "To have meaningful consent, people have to know the consequences of posting their information."

What Do You Mean, Your Personal Information?
In addition, participants questioned Facebook's respect for users' privacy.

"Facebook consistently violates privacy, and that's the core of our complaint to the FTC," Pitts said. "Facebook is very opaque as to the degree to which third party applications can reach into your information, even if you don't use those applications."

Users' data is available to third-party apps if their Facebook friends use those apps.

"Facebook has consciously created an architecture to encourage the transmission of user data so it could be mined without the user understanding it," the CDD's Chester said. "This is where its new approach to instant personalization doesn't work, because ultimately the default will be to let third-party applications collect data."

This access to user data by third-party apps was the focus of EPIC's complaint to the FTC last year, EPIC executive director Marc Rotenberg remarked.

"Much of the user's social graph was going to application developers without users knowing about it," Rotenberg pointed out. "Facebook users have a fair amount of control over what they post, but they can't control what Facebook provides to third parties, and that's where we think the FTC's and regulatory activities need to continue."

Time to Lay Down the Law
"We want opt in to be the model with data minimization, user control, articulation of sensitive data on, for example, finance and health that would have more stringent safeguards," the CDD's Chester insisted. "We want regulation to control the massive stealth data collection that has emerged with Facebook and Google and want the FTC to this fall state what the governing policy should be on collecting consumer data, especially on social networks," he added.

"There are very sound reasons for Federal regulatory action and oversight on an ongoing basis in this area [of Facebook's commitment to privacy]. We know that people treat Facebook as a trusted environment. Unless default settings are changed by the user, they remain more open to the world than in prior incarnations of Facebook," BORDC's Pitts said.

"There's a need for federal oversight, and we need legislation for online privacy rights," Consumer Watchdog's Simpson pointed out.

EPIC is looking to the FTC to crack down on Facebook.

"We did receive an acknowledgement by the FTC in January that said the complaint filed by EPIC and other groups raised issues of particular interest to the Commission," EPIC's Rotenberg said.

The FTC had a representative attend the teleconference.

[NOKIA™]

and i heard FB will start charging member fees $3.99/month starting July...

sheeesh...hehe

I told the wife if they start charging...she better close her account...

I ain't paying for it...:no:

[ft@t@lk™]

apparently it's a false rumor with a twist... <br />
<br />
c/p TheRegister (UK) <br />
<br />
False Facebook charge group used to spread malware <br />
Alert PrintMalware pokes outraged users <br />
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