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EPIC Files FTC Complaint Over Facebook's New Privacy Policy
An anonymous reader writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate the recent changes made by Facebook to the privacy settings of Facebook users. The complaint discusses the sharing of user information with third-party developers and the new, widely-opposed 'Everyone' setting, which allows certain user information, such as name, profile picture, and friends lists, to be publicly available. EPIC also urges the FTC to compel Facebook to restore privacy safeguards. The complaint was signed by nine privacy and consumer organizations."
They just maintain an illusion of privacy, that's all.
Palm trees and 8
Prediction: In response to these new privacy concerns, Facebook will change their privacy policy, tightening up security over the information people are concerned about. At the same time, they will loosen security over other information, starting a new wave of complaints.
Let's be real - this is, what, the fourth or fifth time this sort of thing has happened and every time it does, Facebook changes their policy by tightening "here" while loosening "there". This will be no different.
i was going to release my site, ssnbook.com, where users could enter and exchange thier social security numbers. Now i'm worried someone to will file a complaint with the FTC against me :(
Please tell me how I can make it so that my name, profile picture, and friends list would not be publicly available (short of quitting facebook).
kthnxbye
Let's see, we can either sue somebody, or use the helpful selection screen to change our privacy settings back to the way they were.
Facebook has removed the ability for users to opt out of publicly sharing certain information, including their profile photo, networks, and sex. I have every privacy setting set to "Friends Only" or "Friends of Friends," but those things are still publicly viewable in my profile.
I honestly don't get why third parties would be getting involved in it. Sure, the privacy settings might not be to everyone's wishes but third parties complaining to the government to get them to interfere is just layering stupidity on top of stupidity.
The point is that you CAN'T change your privacy settings back to how they were.
For example, you can no longer have your Profile Pic show up for friends only, and you can't hide your friends list from non-friends anymore either, along with a few other items on the profile page.
Adding new privacy settings is good - eliminating existing privacy features is not.
Not all of us want our photos, etc. to be publicly available without our permission, especially when there had been an expectation of privacy of that data in the past.
I fully admit I'm pretty uninformed on this stuff - but why the FTC? What can they do about it? What control or influence do they have over what a private business does with their member's website?
EPIC FILE!
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
There have been numerous reports of people being fired for relatively innocuous facebook pictures which didn't really have much to do with their work. One particular case had a Quebec woman lose her disability insurance for depression, because she had a facebook picture of her going to the beach. These may be an exception, but it demonstrates how an employer or the government can get into your private life in a way that wasn't previously possible.
I have a facebook profile but I rarely post and when I do I make sure it is information that could never harm me in any way.
Ever since I, somewhat reluctantly, started using Facebook, I have followed the simple policy of making everything I post as public as possible, while simply not posting anything I don't want any random web surfer to see. If this change will make more people snap out of their false sense of Facebook privacy, all the better, I say.
On the Profile page, go to the "Friends" box on the left-hand side and click on the pencil. "Show friend list to everyone" is a checkbox.
If users don't like certain privacy policies, they can restore their privacy by leaving the privately owned site whose policy(ies) they disagree with.
Can someone sue because facebook allows photos to be right-clicked and saved? What if they started with some flash based photo system that didn't allow "easy" saving and later transitioned to one that did? Would that warrant a complaint to the FTC?
On the whole, we're still in the middle of a huge transition in the ways we communicate with each other, and the degrees to which we trust third parties with information that rightfully belongs to us. Facebook is no more accountable to its users than any other service; and no matter how much we might bitch and moan about changes in their privacy policies, the fact is that they are going to use our information in as many ways as they can to make money. Sharing information directly with third parties is the most obvious, but there are plenty of indirect means.
Now that we can't hide ourselves, we're bound to attract more friends. Every one of those relationships is a potential revenue stream, either directly or indirectly. Folks at MIT recently demonstrated that they can determine to a high probability who on Facebook is gay without knowing anything about them except their friends. I'm sure the same technique applies to religion, various types of hobbies, and a number of other things we don't always give as much thought to, like criminals, terrorists and the like. These affiliations and attributes have to be a gold mine for someone, and the policy changes are a new mother lode.
I'm glad that EPIC, FTC, etc., are interested in our privacy, as they can exert pressure to change things in ways that we as users cannot. What I'd really like to see out of all this might be some kind of formal privacy impact review before changes to social networking policies are made. Any change that degrades privacy would need to be identified by third parties, justified or mitigated by the social network, then reviewed again until it's clear that users will be better off after the change than they were before. I think that expecting users to flee a service following troublesome changes is unrealistic. The users are caught between a rock and a hard place, and Facebook will continue twisting their arms as long as the users are paying more attention to their friends and apps than they are to their privacy.
It will be sad, yet very interesting at the same time, to see what happens when lost privacy demonstrably results in crimes of various sorts. Facebook may find that its greed has a higher human price than it might ever have realized.
Because, let's be honest, people are too stupid for their own good.
Most people couldn't foresee this move (of course many /.ers did) so we have to sue and regulate on their behalf. Maybe they shouldn't even be allowed to vote, voting should require an IQ test, and a proficiency test in politics and public matters, throw in commerce too.
Or maybe not, I'm exaggerating, but really, what is the logic in not letting people smoke whatever they want but allowing them to sell their life in facebook? On many states prostitution and gambling are banned, adulthood for drinking and sex is based on an arbitrary number with no analysis supporting it and we don't even let people build their homes however they want, we don't even let people eat wherever they want regardless of the hygiene of the places they go.
But not on facebook, on facebook we are to believe every user is intelligent, informed and fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
But... the future refused to change.
The difference between the strawmen that you've thrown up and Facebook is that unlike homes and eateries, people can do without Facebook. As a society we have to develop health codes so that we can continue to live together and not all die of disease. The same thing goes with building codes. We can't have our neighbors building unstable structures that will collapse... or running gas pipes that will leak and explode... or water pipes that will burst and flood the neighborhood.
On the other hand, you can turn off your computer right now and never see Facebook again and your neighbors won't care. Your city won't be any worse off without Facebook.
Facebook and the various third parties involved with it and similar sites are simply marketers who have moved onto the next thing. Junk mail doesn't work. Telemarketing doesn't work. Yet all sorts of people are freely sharing information on the internet and that is where the marketing is being focused. "There is no such thing as a free lunch." still holds true on the internet. What right does anyone have to believe that a company like Facebook won't monetize their investment? Facebook didn't materialize out of nowhere simply so that people could have a convenient way to stay in touch with their friends and play free games. Those games aren't free. The servers that run the service and the internet connections that make the service accessible cost money. That money will be recouped somehow.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I disagree. With as much personal identification as Facebook has, they should be taking a cautionary, responsible approach with how that information is collected, shared, used, and deleted.
If they can't, then, yes, they need oversight.
I'll grant the point about construction codes because of the gas pipes although as a IT person it sounds like securing a network WAN by controlling every node what kind of boggled architecture is that?
But I don't buy it about restaurants, nothing should prevent clients to get into the kitchen and asses for themselves the quality of the food, further more that says nothing about prohibitions on gambling, prostitution, marijuana, crack, heroine, cocaine, etc. And not only are many things prohibited to under-aged people, the states prevents me from supplying them with alcohol or the like, effectively telling me how I can raise my children.
I'm not saying this things are good, what I'm saying is that we do accept having the government tell us what we can't do for our own good, so there is nothing funtamentaly wrong about a non profit suing facebook and having the government enforce better privacy controls.
facebook is not a startup in some kid's garage. it's a huge billionaire corporation, it collects more information than the NSA for the FSM's sake! Let the government regulate the hell out of it.
But... the future refused to change.
nothing should prevent clients to get into the kitchen and asses for themselves the quality of the food
Keep your dirty, coughing, sneezing, unwashed masses out of the kitchens, you biohazard.
You can't take the sky from me...