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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.
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.
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.
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!
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Now do better next time, or we'll politely ask you to do better next time again!