Privacy advocates filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, arguing that recent changes to Facebook’s privacy policies and settings violate federal consumer protection laws.
The complaint, filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and nine other advocacy groups, addresses changes rolled out by Facebook earlier this month that make certain information publicly available outside the Facebook network. Among the modifications were setting defaults for certain categories of information to the public setting, including name, profile photo, friend and page lists. Facebook users may adjust these privacy settings to limit the accessibility of this information.
The EPIC alleged in its complaint that these changes
“violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations.”
Moreover, the complaint urges the FTC to
“investigate Facebook, determine the extent of the harm to consumer privacy and safety, require Facebook to restore privacy settings that were previously available…require Facebook to give users meaningful control over personal information, and seek appropriate injunctive and compensatory relief.”
The EPIC is not alone in its concerns. Thousands have swarmed Facebook to post their criticisms, forming protest groups within Facebook such as “Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!”
While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated in an open letter that the goal of the new privacy settings was to create a simpler method of privacy control for Facebook’s 350 million users, it sounds like Facebook is getting more than it bargained for.
As we wrote earlier this month, Facebook has been under pressure to clean up the mess from its Beacon advertising program.
What are your thoughts? Are the new, simpler privacy settings an improvement? Are they suited to help Facebook’s users and advertisers or is this just another mess Facebook has created?
