Friday, December 18, 2009

Privacy Group Files Complaint To FTC About Facebook

Via DarkReading.com -

A group that advocates Internet privacy has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over Facebook's decision to open more of its members' information to public view unless they actively take steps to limit their data's exposure.

"More than 100 million people in the United States subscribe to the Facebook service. The company should not be allowed to turn down the privacy dial on so many American consumers," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in a statement.

Rotenberg said the changes will make too much user information available to the public, and also to third-party application developers that create games, contests, and other programs for Facebook.

In filing the case, EPIC said it received support from the American Library Association, the Center for Digital Democracy, the Consumer Federation of America, Patient Privacy Rights, and other advocacy groups.

Users' biggest complaint about the changes is that the default privacy setting on Facebook now opens their status updates to the entire Web, unless they proactively takes steps to modify the settings.

----------------------------

The World Reacts to The New Facebook
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/world-reacts-new-facebook

No comments:

Post a Comment