Privacy: Facebook Signs Agreement with the U.S.
This is done: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the powerful U.S. trade regulator has given the green light to an amicable agreement with Facebook on its alleged violations of privacy. In December 2009, several advocacy groups for the protection of privacy, such as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the U.S. authorities had seized, the first global social network at the time was made public by default lot of personal information Facebook profiles, such as the residence of the user.
“I think overall we did a good job on how we give (Facebook users) control over what they publish” , said Mark Zuckerberg , CEO of the company on his blog . “But I am the first to recognize that we also made mistakes , “he writes, noting that his company has developed many tools in recent months to “give users more control” . “Respect for privacy is deeply ingrained in all our developments (…). And even before the signing of the agreement with the FTC, we made corrections, proactively, to take account of concerns that she was raised. ”
The agreement, which is not a conviction or an admission of violations of the law provides for several measures relatively heavy.
Explicit consent of users. Under the terms of the agreement, “and affirmative express consent” of the users must be obtained before any change that would contradict the general preferences of privacy defined by the user. For example, Facebook can no longer make a profile element accessible to all if the user has specified that he wanted his profile is private, unless the user explicitly authorizes it.
Independent audits for twenty years. Facebook is committed to submit to independent audits of its practices for the protection of privacy every two years, for a period of twenty years.
Clearer rules. The social network will develop rules to protect the privacy of its users for its existing services as new. It also agrees not to present “so deceptive” practices in privacy.
Google and the FTC had concluded an amicable agreement similar in March after an investigation service “Buzz” search engine. This service, which made a large number of public information by default, was the subject of heavy criticism, before Google does not proceed urgently to change its tool. The Web giant had to accept that audits of its practices in privacy are conducted every other year for twenty years.
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