Facebook has been under investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission for deceit related to personal data and privacy and has agreed to stop deceptive privacy practices, committed to not making false claims and will submit to independent audits for 20 years.
Facebook, holds personal information on some 800 million users and has often been criticized for its attitude to personal privacy and practices with the personal data of its members.
The FTC claim Facebook repeatedly made claims that were untrue providing the example that the company promises users it will not share thier personal information with advertisers while doing exactly that. In addition they say the popular social network does not inform its users about changes that potentially harm them such as the changes in 2009 that made information that users had specifically designated as private, such as their "Friends List," public.
Under the settlement, Facebook is prevented from being deceptive in the future about how it uses customers' personal information, and is required to get permission from customers before changing how this information information is shared.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and chief executive, has blogged that he is "committed to making Facebook the leader in transparency and control around privacy."
It has agreed – but can it deliver? If it starts being honest to us it will be at a commercial disadvantage so the temptations will always be to act in the dark and then act surprised that people mind. We need some better law around this>CM
No comments:
Post a Comment