Now's your big chance to see Facebook's recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in action!
Facebook is revising its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, for the first time in nearly a year, and you have until March 22 to pipe up with your beefs, The Next Web reports. You can find the notice on the official Facebook site governance page you probably didn't even know existed. Until now:
Today, we’re letting you know of some changes we propose for the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, an important document that describes our relationship with users and others who interact with Facebook. Many of the changes are administrative (for instance, replacing references to our “Privacy Policy” with “Data Use Policy”) and others make our practices and policies more clear.
As part of last year's settlement with the FTC, Facebook must now "get consumers’ approval before it changes the way it shares their data, and requires that it obtain periodic assessments of its privacy practices by independent, third-party auditors for the next 20 years." So now's your big chance.
What's on the docket for your approval? A lot of updated language to go with the Timeline-optimized Facebook. For example:
"Privacy Policy" is now "Data Use Policy," which you have to admit, is a lot more accurate what with "privacy" officially an antiquated notion these days.
The previous statement regarding your info available to third-party applications has been updated to include that your info that might be shared not directly by you, but by your friends who use applications. We've bolded the new wording so you can see what I mean:
"When you or others who can see your content and information use an application, your content and information is shared with the application."
The fact that an application used by your friend has access to the info you share with that friend is nothing new, but now that fact is stated clearly.
Facebook also added added this detailed wording regarding the permission you give to mobile devices:
"You provide consent and all rights necessary to enable users to sync (including through an application) their devices contact lists with any basic information and contact information that is visible to them on Facebook, as well as your name and profile picture. "
And now there's this (which will now officially apply to users and non-users who interact with Facebook):
"Some or all of Facebook’s services and features may not be available to users in certain geographic areas. We reserve the right to exclude or limit the provision of any service or feature in our sole discretion."
And of course, in the section titled "Other," this addition:
"We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you."
You can see the tracked changes on Facebook's Statement of Rights and responsibilities here.
And you can comment on those changes, here.
But hurry! You've only got until Friday. For what it's worth.
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.
