Tech and Web NEWS

A review on How Facebook Privacy Hit With FTC Complaint?

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:December 18, 2009

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Center for Digital Democracy and eight other organisations have filed a complaint to America’s Federal Trade Commission about the changes Facebook has made to its privacy settings.

This complaint concerns material changes to privacy settings made by Facebook, the largest social network service in the United States, which adversely impact users of the Facebook service. Facebook’s changes to users’ privacy settings disclose personal information to the public that was previously restricted.

Facebook’s changes to users’ privacy settings also disclose personal information to third parties that was previously not available. These changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations. These business practices are Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices, subject to review by the Federal Trade Commission (the “Commission”) under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.

These business practices impact more than 100 million users of the social networking site who fall within the jurisdiction of the United States Federal Trade Commission.

Facebook is the largest social network service provider in the United States. According to Facebook, there are more than 350 million active users, with more than 100 million in the United States. More than 35 million users update their statuses at least once each day.

EPIC urges the Commission to investigate Facebook, determine the extent of the harm to consumer privacy and safety, require Facebook to restore privacy settings that were previously available as detailed below, require Facebook to give users meaningful control over personal information, and seek appropriate injunctive and compensatory relief.

Facebook updated its privacy policy and changed the privacy settings available to users on November 19, 2009 and again on December 9, 2009.

Facebook now treats the following categories of personal data as “publicly available information:

users’ names,
profile photos,
lists of friends,
pages they are fans of,
gender,
geographic regions, and
networks to which they belong.

By default, Facebook discloses “publicly available information” to search engines, to Internet users whether or not they use Facebook, and others. According to Facebook, such information can be accessed by “every application and website, including those you have not connected with..

Prior to these changes, only the following items were mandatorily “publicly available information:

a user’s name and
a user’s network.

Users also had the option to include additional information in their public search listing. as the screenshot of the original privacy settings for search discovery demonstrates.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (“EPIC”) is a not-for-profit research center based in Washington, D.C. EPIC focuses on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues and is a leading consumer advocate before the Federal Trade Commission.

The Center for Digital Democracy (“CDD”) is one of the leading non-profit groups analyzing and addressing the impact of digital marketing on privacy and consumer welfare. Based in Washington, D.C., CDD has played a key role promoting policy safeguards for interactive marketing and data collection, including at the FTC and Congress.

Consumer Federation of America (“CFA”) is an association of some 300 nonprofit consumer organizations across the U.S. CFA was created in 1968 to advance the consumer interest through research, advocacy, and education.

Patient Privacy Rights is a non-profit organization located in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2004 by Dr. Deborah Peel, Patient Privacy Rights is dedicated to ensuring Americans control all access to their health records.

Privacy Activism is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to enable people to make well-informed decisions about the importance of privacy on both a personal and societal level. A key goal of the organization is to inform the public about the importance of privacy rights and the short- and long-term consequences of losing them, either
inadvertently, or by explicitly trading them away for perceived or ill-understood notions of security and convenience.

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (“PRC”) is a nonprofit consumer organization with a two-part mission—consumer information and consumer advocacy. It was established in 1992 and is based in San Diego, CA. Among its several goals, PRC works to raise consumers’ awareness of how technology affects personal privacy and to empower consumers to take action to control their own personal information by providing practical tips on privacy protection.

The U. S. Bill of Rights Foundation is a non-partisan public interest law policy development and advocacy organization seeking remedies at law and public policy improvements on targeted issues that contravene the Bill of Rights and related Constitutional law. The Foundation implements strategies to combat violations of individual rights and civil liberties through Congressional and legal liaisons, coalition building, message development, project planning & preparation, tactical integration with supporting entities, and the filings of complaints and of amicus curiae briefs in litigated matters.

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