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Facebook Settles With FTC, Admits Privacy Violations
Animats writes
"Facebook has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceived consumers by telling them they could keep their information on Facebook private, and then repeatedly allowing it to be shared and made public. The settlement is soft on Facebook; there are no fines or criminal penalties. According to the FTC, in December 2009, Facebook 'changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their Friends List – was made public. Facebook didn't warn users that this change was coming, or get their approval in advance.' Among the other complaints (PDF), 'Facebook represented that third-party apps that users' installed would have access only to user information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need.'"
The settlement demands that Facebook avoid any new deceptive privacy claims, and also that users must give explicit permission for changes to be made to their privacy preferences. Facebook will be audited every two years for the next two decades to make sure they're holding up their end of the settlement. In a lengthy statement on Facebook's blog, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that they'd made mistakes.
Not only did they slap Facebook for privacy violations, but also Google a few months ago. They IMO are the two largest privacy violators on the internet.
Now, maybe someone at Facebook will read this and notice: Please fix the chat so that if I have set it offline, it will not quickly popup me as online and then back offline when I later visit Facebook. It seems like a stupid bug. It also leads to stupid private messages (especially from my mother -_-) when I just want to check updates.
Other than that, Facebook has done a pretty good job. It's still the most useful social network on the internet, and I doubt Google+ will be ever able to compete with it.
On the one hand, good on the FTC. Especially for the followup reviews.
On the other hand, this once again proves that it's far easier to just do something contractually and ethically questionable yet massively profitable and wiggle out of the consequences later (especially if you've the money for a squadron of lawyers) than to do things above the board from the get go.
Check your premises.
Because they don't believe they did wrong. They really believe they made mistakes, the first of which was "get caught."
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Probably never.
Why? Because they fill a niche, and do it well. And the thing about social networks is this: whoever is the biggest is probably going to stay the biggest at this point. It's no good joining a social network that none of your friends use. And to some folks, Facebook is the internet.
Not saying this is a good thing, or right - just my observations on the way that things are.
Check your premises.
I wouldn't trust Zuckerberg to watch my dog and yet 100s of millions of people entrust his company with their most personal information. Odd, that.
10 billion isn't cool. You know whats cool? Invading privacy.
I want to be retired when I grow up.
Facebook broke the law. As punishment, Facebook has to promise not to do it again, and be monitored to make sure it keeps its promise. I guess Facebook is only seven years old, and since companies have the same rights as people (apparently), I guess it makes sense they are given punishment befitting a person of that age.
In Facebook's case those audits should probably be about once every two months... There was a new violation (location tracking) on the iOS mobile app just this week.
This is pointing out one of the many problems with social network BS: The word "friend" has been hijacked and turned into "somebody you kinda sorta know from somewhere" rather than "somebody you choose to spend significant amounts of time with but isn't a family member".
Nobody has 300 real friends, I promise you that much.
I am officially gone from
Every two years for two decades!?!?!??!
I bet all my private information that Facebook won't be around in 20 years. And 2 years is enough time to cause a ridiculous amount of damage when you have a billion users.
I bet they're quaking in their repentant boots.
I mean, we're such losers that even Taco abandoned us :(
Chums, chumettes, and granfallooners.
From Mark Zuckerberg's post:
As a matter of fact, privacy is so deeply embedded in all of the development we do that .....
....These privacy principles are written very deeply into our code.
You've gotta admit, the guy does have a good sense of humor ;P
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
It's even simpler than that. There will soon be a generation of kids who wouldn't be caught dead on the same social network as their parents. Eventually, we will get to a point where Facebook will be for old people, just like email is considered by the under-25 set now.
Now you kids get off my lawn!
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
"Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that they'd made mistakes."
Translation: "We got caught"
"The settlement is soft on Facebook; there are no fines or criminal penalties."
Translation: "We paid the FTC boss off or our backers are too powerful to screw with"
"Facebook will be audited every two years for the next two decades to make sure they're holding up their end of the settlement."
Translation: "We expect to get bought off every 2 years if you want us to cover for you"
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Now do better next time, or we'll politely ask you to do better next time again!
As CmdrPony noted above, the internet has stabilized quite a bit. ...
MySpace might have made themselves more than a stepping stone to social networking stabilization, but they did not. Facebook, on the other hand, has done so.
Facebook did it by initially providing a site with stable appearance instead of personalized backgounds and music loading on everyone's pages. Then they started changing things, and rapidly. I'm seeing my non-technical friend drop facebook lately because they're fed up with the changes (not the privacy changes that I disliked, but instead UI changes that confuse them).
Have Oracle buy Facebook, and call OraBook ... or Oracle, since Larry's still in charge. Pair those two up, and then we can have a company that EVERYONE hates.
Nobody has 300 real friends, I promise you that much.
Nobody has 300 *close* friends. I have way more than 300 real friends: old friends, work friends, church friends, family friends, ex girlfriends, close friends. That's not counting acquaintances or friends of those friends. To me, someone I was friends with in high school does stop being my friend just because our lives diverged. At reunions, we happily get back into old patterns while discussing the latest happenings in our lives. If one of them came back into regular contact (and some have), I'd be very happy and welcome their presence.
I know the joke about slashdotters, but we really don't live in basements.