Facebook in new battle with privacy groups
Facebook is facing a fresh backlash from users over planned changes to its privacy rules.
The website wants to share information with photo application Instagram – which it recently bought – loosen email restrictions and get rid of a user voting system.
Privacy campaign groups said it could leave users more open to spam and did not give them a choice about what information they shared.
‘Facebook will know even more about you and will use whatever they can get out of Instagram – location data, key word tagging, for example,’ said Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group.
‘It will use that information for commercial purposes. The point is, did Facebook ask “do you mind if we combine this data?” The fact is nobody did.’
The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy have also asked Facebook to withdraw the changes.
The social networking site is also proposing to scrap users’ ability to vote on changes to its data privacy policy.
Since 2009, it has held votes on any changes to its privacy rules that attract at least 7,000 comments on its official announcements online.
2012-11-28 16:00:47
Source: http://rinf.com/alt-news/sicence-technology/facebook-in-new-battle-with-privacy-groups/17849/
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For Facebook users to reject its new governance policy will require over 300 million of them to vote under existing rules I think it’s unlikely to happen, but still worth trying. Under the existing rules, 7,000 Facebook members needed to leave comments by today to trigger a vote. About three times that number left comments of objection, but that represents only .002% of the membership; far short of the 30% needed under the rules to vote for change. Possibly most members don’t fully realise how their private data is used by Facebook. I’ve written a blog about this on Blogspot called, ‘Stop Facebook’s new face’ – goo.gl/fUIkA