Facebook and Your Privacy
Well it has finally happened; you know what I'm talking about Facebook's fall from grace. The poster child of social networking now has a blotch on its shiny reputation when it comes to handling our privacy. Here is the summary of the report.
The Complaint
The complaint against Facebook by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) comprised 24 allegations ranging over 12 distinct subjects. These included default privacy settings, collection and use of users’ personal information for advertising purposes, disclosure of users’ personal information to third-party application developers, and collection and use of non-users’ personal information.
The Issues
The central issue in CIPPIC’s allegations was knowledge and consent. Our Office focused its investigation on whether Facebook was providing a sufficient knowledge basis for meaningful consent by documenting purposes for collecting, using, or disclosing personal information and bringing such purposes to individuals’ attention in a reasonably direct and transparent way. Retention of personal information was an issue that surfaced specifically in the allegations relating to account deactivation and deletion and non-users’ personal information. Security safeguards figured prominently in the allegations about third-party applications and Facebook Mobile.
Findings and Conclusions
On four subjects (e.g., deception and misrepresentation, Facebook Mobile), the Assistant Commissioner found no evidence of any contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were not well-founded. On another four subjects (e.g., default privacy settings, advertising), the Assistant Commissioner found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act, but concluded that the allegations were well-founded and resolved on the basis of corrective measures proposed by Facebook in response to her recommendations.
On the remaining subjects of third-party applications, account deactivation and deletion, accounts of deceased users, and non-users’ personal information, the Assistant Commissioner likewise found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were well-founded. In these four cases, there remain unresolved issues where Facebook has not yet agreed to adopt her recommendations. Most notably, regarding third-party applications, the Assistant Commissioner determined that Facebook did not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access by application developers to users’ personal information, and furthermore was not doing enough to ensure that meaningful consent was obtained from individuals for the disclosure of their personal information to application developers.
Follow-up
Where well-founded allegations were deemed to be resolved, the Assistant Commissioner notified Facebook that her Office would follow up after 30 days to verify implementation of the proposed corrective measures. Where well-founded allegations remained unresolved, the Assistant Commissioner asked Facebook to reconsider the recommendations in question and gave notice that her Office, in following up on other matters after 30 days, would also check for evidence of acceptance and implementation of those outstanding recommendations or acceptable alternatives.
To read the full report of the commissioner's findings go to http://www.priv.gc.ca/cf-dc/2009/2009_008_0716_e.cfm
Given the lengths of EULAs (end-user license agreements) I am sure that 99% of most users don't read them and to make matters worse or more convenient; which ever way you want to look at now it is a link to a popup window with a check box that you need to click. You don't even have to scroll though the text before you hit "the accept" check box and next button anymore. I'm not here to talk about why people should read EULAs I'm talking about the start of Facebook and their 3rd party affiliates using their user’s images and possibly video, comments any kind of content they deem useful for ads.
I am sure most of you have heard of The Facebook Dating Ad where a 3rd party ad used Cheryl Smith's picture in a singles ad - but get this she's married. This could have been very bad for her marriage if both her and her husband didn't have a sense of humor about it. The part where Facebook specifies the use of your content is in the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (see the bold text).
1. About Advertisements on Facebook
Our goal is to deliver ads that are not only valuable to advertisers, but also valuable to you. In order to do that, you agree to the following:
1. You can use your privacy settings to limit how your name and profile picture may be associated with commercial or sponsored content. You give us permission to use your name and profile picture in connection with that content, subject to the limits you place.
2. We do not give your content to advertisers.
3. You understand that we may not always identify paid services and communications as such.
By default you allow advertisers to use your content for ads, but you can disallow this.
Here's how.
Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click “no one.”
Hopefully we can learn something from this, perhaps that in a digital world nothing is safe and everything is up for grabs. Perhaps the best reference to this can be made to the digital music revolution with Napster. Now that we are posting our pictures up on the net and because we all click on the all mighty "I agree" button when signing up for things online we are selling ourselves a little bit at a time to use a service. Depending on what your values are and what you consider valuable you might think this is a great deal. However if you are like the music industry and don't want your stuff used or shared then you should have a very close look at EULAs in the future. For most of us out there (unlike the recording industry) we don't have tons of money to go after companies or people who use our pictures with out our written permission. At what point are consumers going to be outraged by the use of their personal pictures or video being used in an ad? A question that will be answered some time in the future I’m sure. Until then I'll make sure that my privacy settings are set to disallow advertisers from using my images.
How to better protect yourself on Facebook
http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/
http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook-profile.html
Read more about Facebook's Terms
http://www.facebook.com/terms.php
http://digg.com/world_news/Facebook_Owns_You
http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/facebook-dating-ads-2/
http://www.culturesmithconsulting.com/change-your-facebook-settings-or-else/
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