Senators Tell Facebook To Quit Sharing Users' Info

Hugh Pickens notes a USA Today story reporting that two US senators have joined Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in telling Facebook to quit sharing more of its users' data than they signed up for. Politico.com ups USA Today's ante, saying that it was three more senators, not two more, who joined Schumer's call: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Al Franken (D-MN). The senators are asking the FTC to look at Facebook's controversial new information-sharing policies, arguing that the massively popular social network overstepped its bounds when it began sharing user data with other websites. Sen. Schumer said he learned about the new rules from his daughter, who is in law school, but added that he's noticed no difference on his own Facebook page, which, he assured reporters, "is very boring." "I can attest to that," deadpanned Franken, who made his living as a comedian before entering the Senate, and whose Facebook followers outnumber Schumer's by ten to one.

Comments

It's kind of sad...

[Daetrin]

It's kind of sad that apparently one of our more intelligent congresscritters, one who's willing to speak out for consumer rights at least (no matter how silly this case may actually be according to some people) "started out" as a comedian. But i guess if you're using lifetime politicians as a baseline...

Re:It's kind of sad...

[copponex]

First of all, Ann Coulter is worthless human being. She has capitalized on the tragedy of 9/11 by preaching hate. She's nothing more than a reeking blonde vulture, desperately clawing at the carcass of terrorism for the last bits of money she can dig out, all the while claiming she's the only one who cares. Anyway.

You do not need the government to help the poor, downtrodden, unfortunate, or anyone else down on their luck.

You don't need the government to fight wars, do you? Just get together with your friends, build an aircraft carrier, manufacture all the weapons, and drive that shit over there. Government would only get in the way of such a complicated operation, right?

Obviously not. Certain institutions, when socialized, provide better services to a greater amount of people. That's why our military is the best in the world - we spend all of our money on it.

It's the same reason why the Constitution gave the power to the government to build roads and post offices. Infrastructure is what makes a nation strong and resilient, and this includes the infrastructure that takes care of the needy.

Problem

[skine]

The major problem I see here is that Facebook is allowed to change its terms without notifying anyone.

Re:Problem

[Enderandrew]

I went through the process of asking to have my account deleted. I stopped using Facebook for over a year. A quick Google search still showed my profile as visible. I went back to the site a year later, and logged in just fine. My account never went anywhere and was never deleted.

The real problem here is that Facebook pledged on their website that information was going to be private. Now they're sharing that very information and not even giving you any option to opt-out of it. They lied to all their users.

Could it be said they defrauder users for information that they've deemed valuable enough to sell to partner sites?

This is a major misstep.

Free economy, regulate fraud

[Darkness404]

The problem I see is that this will lead to more regulation, which leads to less innovation, more draconian laws (see DMCA) and losses of freedom. What congress needs to do is to force -everyone- not just Facebook, MySpace, etc. is that they can't just change terms and conditions whenever they see fit without making us agree to them again.

This is -fraud- and must be eliminated. Think of it this way, you go to Wal-Mart, buy a new blender thinking it had the feature to, say, crush ice. So for the first week it does it just fine then the next week it won't crush ice because that feature had been removed. You should have a right to demand a refund. (And that example wasn't too far out there, look at Sony and the PS3...) and you should have the -right- to be notified when things change. If you aren't informed of the change, you didn't agree to it therefore the contract should be voided.

Any license that states that they can change the conditions must be made illegal. A contract or license is an -agreement- and agreements mean that 2 parties need to know what they are agreeing to. If they don't, its not an agreement.