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After Canadian Prodding, Facebook To Change Privacy Policy

Posted by timothy on from the but-it-was-a-polite-prodding dept.

Retardical_Sam writes "Facebook has agreed to make changes to protect users' personal information on the social networking site, including the way data is accessed by third-party developers, Canada's privacy commissioner said Thursday. Canadian officials have been negotiating with Facebook since the Office of the Privacy Commissioner released a report a month ago that argued the social network breaches Canadian privacy law. Facebook agreed to make changes dealing with third-party applications like quizzes and games, deactivation of accounts, the personal identification of non-users and accounts of users who die."

5 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Will they make the changes globally? by manitoulinnerd · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the article:

    'The company also said the changes will be rolled out worldwide because some of the concerns raised in Canada have also been raised by privacy watchdogs in other countries.'

    --
    Burn Bright or Fade Away
  2. Re:Nuts! by RobVB · · Score: 3, Informative
    From the news post:

    Facebook agreed to make changes dealing with [...] accounts of users who die.

    FTA:

    Facebook has specifically agreed to: [...] Clarify in its privacy policy that it will retain a user's profile after the user dies so friends can post comments and pay tribute.

    They didn't say they would protect the privacy of the dead, just that they would change the way they deal with people's profiles after they die.

    --
    I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
  3. Re:When pigs fly by Haffner · · Score: 3, Informative

    Or, you know, by your friend or total strangers who take a picture of you.

    --
    "Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
  4. Re:Permanent Deletion? Maybe? by minsk · · Score: 2, Informative

    and anything the other FB users saved, and anything their ISPs recorded, and on and on...

    Of course, storing data received from the Facebook API for extended periods is a violation of their TOS. As are all the forms of redistribution people are paranoid about. And the applications *still* can't get more data than they could be having the installing users run a real application which spiders the FB pages.

    So, *shrug*

  5. Re:Let the negotians commence! by hesiod · · Score: 3, Informative

    You can tell someone who doesn't really understand reality because they refer you to Atlas Shrugged.