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Facebook's Instant Personalization catches flack from the U.S. Senate
If you thought this Facebook thing was just a passing fad, think again. Even the United States Senate has its eye on Facebook this week. A coalition of Democratic senators, led by New York's Chuck Schumer, wants Facebook to make its new Instant Personalization feature opt-in instead of opt-out. Instant Personalization is the feature that lets Facebook share your user info with a selection of partner sites. Supposedly, it's done for the benefit of your user experience, and only with your consent, but a lot of users don't know how to turn Instant Personalization off. Sen. Schumer and Co. want Facebook to close this privacy loophole.
Facebook has already responded to the Senators, letting them know that they don't see a problem with the current system, because it does require user consent. While the senate has addressed online privacy in the past, this is their first time directing a request at Facebook specifically. These new privacy changes are a BIG DEAL, people.
Comments
11
Subscribe to commentsdaesudacApr 28th 2010 10:49AM
All four of these nannys are democrats. Why don't they leave this private company alone. If you don't like facebook's policy, don't use their service. Personally, I think facebook is stupid, but what the hell is it the business of a bunch of nosey socialists.
zpg006Apr 28th 2010 10:20AM
Yea. Because personal security and privacy is a nanny state issue.
JoshApr 28th 2010 11:46AM
You just committed so many logical fallacies with that argument that I won't even try to argue back.
Stephen LangApr 28th 2010 10:01AM
I agree that it should be opt-in, I would think that users of Facebook (or any website for that matter) wouldn't necessarily want their information shared outside of that site without their explicit permission. I certainly don't and since the F8 conference I've gone through each and every checkbox in my privacy and account settings, of which there are about 30 or 40, and made every setting private/only me.
At least with Twitter you know exactly what is shared (tweets, friends, followers, bio) but do people want to really let application developers know exactly which events you've attended in the past month?
Maybe I'm in the minority but I only want to use Facebook as an alternative to e-mail and to keep in touch with far away friends, not to completely open up my personal life/profile/graph to every developer with an API hook up their sleeve.
rioliabiApr 28th 2010 10:53AM
To: zpg006 Are you saying that you don't have it together enough to assess whether this service meets your privacy concerns? It is Facebook after all, participant’s ‘faces’ are an open ‘book’ (see what I did there) for anyone to see on the internet and people are concerned about privacy? So you need the government to force facebook to change their unpopular policy to protect your privacy? If everybody wants a social networking site with better privacy, then one will pop out of the free market (maybe you can start one) and facebook will circle the drain.
Muffin_manApr 28th 2010 2:07PM
It is Facebook after all, participant’s ‘faces’ are an open ‘book’ (see what I did there)
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=puns
for anyone to see on the internet and people are concerned about privacy?
Not true.
So you need the government to force facebook to change their unpopular policy to protect your privacy?
Yes, people are ignorant of the things that go on in the tech world. If Microsoft decided to bring out an update that recorded everything you did on your computer without making it widely known to the average user wouldn't you be a little peeved?
If everybody wants a social networking site with better privacy, then one will pop out of the free market (maybe you can start one) and facebook will circle the drain.
That might be easy for you and your two friends but for the rest of us it just isn't practical to switch to a different site.
Cap. TJ HookerApr 28th 2010 9:24PM
I love how facebook says it requires your consent when it's already active before you can give consent. While the government doesn't and shouldn't necessarily need to get involve, much like steroids in baseball, it is still good to see that someone does care and is trying to change an ass backward policy that should have never been created.
archerApr 28th 2010 2:56PM
"So you need the government to force facebook to change their unpopular policy to protect your privacy?
Yes, people are ignorant of the things that go on in the tech world."
ah, there we have it in a nutshell. we need government force because we are ignorant. an attitude that is an incredible mix of arrogance and subservience. what a combo.
pathetic
Muffin_manApr 28th 2010 4:58PM
Actually, yes you do need the government to force laws to protect people from their own ignorance. That's why we have laws put in place on our roads, travel, drug usage and more.
AnthonyApr 28th 2010 8:07PM
@Muffin_man So everything is now the government's job? I don't believe we need a bigger government just to protect us from ourselves. If anything, history has taught us that big government juggernauts will only drag the country into the ground. It's been one-hundred years in the making (Woodrow Wilson). We don't need socialism. We need our old constitution back. (You know, the one that worked?) We don't need more government to tell us what to do. And, in case you haven't noticed, the example you gave for drug usage? How does that work again? It doesn't. You tell people what not to do and they will automatically go do the opposite. Remember the Netherlands? They legalized drugs and have a much lower amount of drug usage than the US. Sorry, but I don't believe in socialism.
/end rant/ (Sorry about the rant)
"People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people."
kevjohnApr 28th 2010 3:37PM
Dammit! Hate to admit it, but I guess I am one of those ignorant facebook users. I haven't been paying any kind of attention to the security issues surrounding Instant Personalization because I use fb almost exclusively for networking and free marketing for my photography. I'm not concerned with hiding anything I post on there from anyone. In fact, the more people who see it, the more I potentially benefit. But I wasn't aware until now that they were mainly using my info to sell, err share, with other companies. I've been too busy with trying to actually network that I haven't been bothering much with reading all the fine print that comes along with the site. In other words, I want to use facebook, but I don't want them to use me.
That'll teach me to ignore DS's privacy guides.