[LINK] CDD: Facebook principles still lacking

[Roger Clarke]

Privacy group: Facebook principles still lacking
by Grant Gross, IDG News Service
http://www.macworld.com/article/139615/2009/03/facebook_privacy.html

Facebook's recent decision to back off proposed changes in its terms 
of service still leaves the social-media site with a "huge loophole" 
in privacy protections, a privacy group said Tuesday.

Facebook's new proposed policies still allow the site to use 
everything users post, said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of 
the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), a digital rights and privacy 
group.

Facebook's proposed terms of service grant the site "a nonexclusive, 
transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use, 
copy, publicly perform or display, distribute, modify, translate, and 
create derivative works of any content you post on or in connection 
with Facebook."

That section threatens user privacy, Chester said in comments sent to 
Facebook. Facebook's claim of a license for "items such as individual 
users' photos or videos is just plain creepy," he wrote.

"No user believes that Facebook has the right or license to use 
photos of their kids, videos of family or friends, or other such 
personal data," Chester added. Facebook needs to ask users for the 
right to use that data, he said.

Facebook asked users for input on its privacy principles after a 
controversy erupted in February when some privacy groups accused the 
site of changing its policy so that it had the right to keep archival 
copies of everything posted on Facebook. After a user backlash, 
Facebook abandoned that policy.

The wording of the proposed principles also "allows enough legal 
wiggle room for Facebook to ignore them completely," Chester said in 
comments sent to Facebook.

The principles say, "people should own their information." But 
Chester called for the site to remove the word, "should," thus making 
the statement stronger, he said.

In addition, the second proposed principle, addressing ownership and 
control of information, doesn't address the possibility of Facebook 
gathering, mining or sharing users' information, Chester said. "Users 
need to know how third-party developers use the data accessed or 
collected, including how the data is used for advertising and 
marketing," he said.

Facebook issued a statement in response to Chester's comments. "We're 
glad to have input from CDD, and we'll be reviewing it along with the 
thousands of other valuable comments we've received from users and 
other experts from around the world," the statement said.

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW