Facebook About to Change Privacy Policy. Again...

It took me a bit to understand and figure out all the privacy options on Facebook... And now it may be time to start all over again.
I concede that some changes were REALLY necessary.  However, updating the policies and modifying the control interface so frequently is also affecting users' ability to understand what is going on.
Perhaps FB will send a notice to inform of the changes and proactively explain...

Art. 29 Working Party: unacceptable that Facebook changed default settings to the user's detriment

Yesterday Art. 29 Working Party issued a press release where it declared it unacceptable that Facebook radically altered its privacy policies to the detriment of users.
The issue concerns the default settings. The WP recommended:

a default setting in which access to the profile information and information about the connections of a user is limited to self-selected contacts. Any further access, such as by search engines, should be an explicit choice of the user.

However, Facebook users know that it is necessary to navigate the privacy settings and go through a series of opt-outs.
Furthermore, the WP points out to Facebook and other social networks the lesson learned by Google in Italy: when a user uploads some contents involving a third party's personal data it is necessary to "to obtain free and unambiguous consent."
On the latter point there are still some fundamental technical problems. In fact, I am not sure how it would be possible to protect the interests of third parties by assigning such tasks to the social network platform, unless the WP requires that Facebook or other social networking sites add another check-box on their terms ... something like this:

"You represent that the uploaded or shared content (" Content ") does not violate the privacy and / or other personal rights of third parties and that in any case you have previously obtained free and unambiguous consent to the publication of the Content from the owner of any personal data or personal rights relating to the Content."

It would be easy for users to mark this check-box (among the many). Who knows if this will be more effective than similar disclaimers about copyrighted content.

CHECK ...

Facebook and Site Open Governance (Again)

Facebook is very aware that every move it makes is recorded and meticulously analyzed by observers from all countries.

Then, Facebook came up with the brilliant idea to turn this attention to his advantage by inviting its user base and said observers to join the debate about the governance of the site.

In other words, Facebook is now going to change its TOS and Privacy Policy and is asking users' feedback.

HERE's blog where the proposed changes are discussed.

I will add my comments  soon (unless in the next few hours they decide to make no changes at all).

Facebook Settles Beacon Privacy Class Action

Past December 2009, Facebook contacted its user to inform them of the existence of this class action.
If you were wondering what happened, a $9.5 million settlement has been approved.
Here you find more details.

Compare New and Old Privacy Policy

It isn't always easy to compare the latest version of a on-line document with the prior... especially when the old document is promptly removed for legal reasons. If you need a Delta-View (a redline) combined with a Feedburner to catch up with all TOS and Privacy Policy modifications by major Internet companies, well, Tosback.org is a great tool.

Here, for example, it is the new paragraph added by Facebook in the new Privacy Policy:

"Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings."