More Facebook Privacy Changes Announced
Responding to pressure from Facebook users, privacy advocates and government representatives worldwide (including a report from Canada's Office of the Privacy Commissioner), as well as a growing campaign culminating in today's "Quit Facebook Day" campaign, (started by Canadians Joseph Dee and Matthew Milan), Facebook Inc. has announced changes to allow for simplified privacy controls by its users.
There are three central aspects to the new privacy changes (see Facebook explanation here):
(1) users can now control their privacy with just one setting thereby allowing users to quickly and simply control who can access their shared information;
(2) Facebook reduced the amount of information that a user must share in order to have an account. Now only your name, profile picture, gender, and networks must be public.
(3) users now have the ability to control which third party applications can access their personal information.
While most commentators suggest this is certainly a step in the right direction, further changes are probably required. One potential problem is that users cannot prevent others from tagging them in photos. These changes do not address Facebook’s collection and use of user’s personal information for behavioural advertising purposes. Activists still argue for increased regulatory oversight to protect user’s private information on social networking platforms. Facebook appears to be a litmus test for how privacy will be regulated in the future, so other industry players are certainly watching closely.
For further discussion on the privacy issues as they relate to privacy and Facebook, see: The Globe & Mail and the recent opinion piece and excellent summary on this issue by Ian Kerr in the Ottawa Citizen appropriately entitled "The Devil is in the Defaults". For additional information regarding Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg's own opinion piece in The Washington Post entitled "From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings". CBC radio host Nora Young discussed these developments with Debbie Frost, Facebook's Director of International Communications and Public Policy on her program Spark which has a podcast from the May 28, 2010 episode.
Many thanks to the contributions of Scott Masson, student-at-law, MacPherson Leslie & Tyerman LLP
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