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Is Facebook Having Another Privacy Disconnect?

Chris Conley,
Policy Attorney,
ÀÏ°ÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û of Northern California Technology and Civil Liberties Project
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April 21, 2010

The very first sentence on states: "You should have control over what you share."

That seems fairly simple, doesn't it?

But many of Facebook's recent actions, such as its have made it harder for users to retain control over their information. Is this week more of the same?

Earlier this week, following up on its , Facebook its plans to create more dynamic profiles using "Connections." What exactly counts as a connection wasn't clearly defined either time, but seems to include things like friends lists, likes and interests, events, groups, and activities. (Today's announcement of the includes News Feed, Wall, Notes, Photos, and Videos as "connections" too, but Facebook may be overusing the word to mean different things.)

More importantly, it also isn't clear whether users will have real control over how their connections are shared. Both Facebook's and its have suggested that users cannot prevent applications, pages, and other third parties from accessing these connections. (They may be able to "hide" them from other Facebook users, but not from the government, advertisers, or anyone else with the ability and incentive to create apps or pages.) However, today's new documents for developers point to the page that requires that applications and pages to explicitly ask the user before accessing various "connections," including interests, events, groups, and location.

If Facebook believes that you "should have control over what you share," it should resolve this by giving users real control over whether their connections can be accessed by apps and pages. Doing so still won't resolve other issues, like the that allows your friends' applications to view your personal information without your knowledge or consent, but it would be one step in the right direction.

Otherwise, the only way you can keep control of your information is to refuse to use Facebook to share or connect at all. And that's not what we mean by control.

So don't let Facebook take away control over your personal information! that you want to have control over your friends, groups, events, and interests so that you — and not Facebook, the government, or anyone else — choose how and when they are shared!

Demand control of your personal information —

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