Facebook is proposing changes sure to make privacy advocates and regulators sit up and take notice.
The social media site hopes to combine user data with that of
Instagram as well as relax restrictions on e-mails between its members.
The company has said it may share information with other businesses
or Facebook affiliates in a bid to “help provide, understand, and
improve our services and their own services,” according to its proposed data use policy.
Photo-sharing service Instagram falls under the affiliates category — Facebook purchased it in October for $715 million.
If the proposed changes become reality, Facebook would be able to
construct integrated user profiles that include people’s personal data
from its site and from Instagram, according to a Reuters report.
The move would be comparable to that taken by Google when the search
engine said it would unite users’ personal information from its Web
services — search, e-mail, Google+ — to better tailor the experience to
the user.
Privacy activists and watchdogs called the move an invasion of privacy.
The changes don’t end there. Facebook also wants to junk its
guidelines that enable its members to vote on changes it makes to its
data use policy.
Facebook vice-president for communications, public policy and
marketing Elliot Schrage said the social networking site wants to end
the “voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to
more meaningful feedback and engagement.”
“We deeply value the feedback we receive from you during our comment period,” he wrote in a blog.
“In the past, your substantive feedback has led to changes to the
proposals we made. However, we found that the voting mechanism, which is
triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a
system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality.”
Originally, Facebook allowed users to vote on proposed changes. If
there were more than 7,000 comments and the proposed changes were voted
on by at least 30 percent of Facebook’s active users, the change would
go into effect. However, with about 1 billion users, getting 30 percent
to vote would be virtually impossible.
Under the new system, Facebook is allowing users to comment on or like the proposed changes.
“We will continue to post significant changes to our data use policy
and SRR and provide a seven-day period for review and comment,” Schrage
said. “As always, we will carefully consider your feedback before
adopting any changes. We will also provide additional notification
mechanisms, including e-mail, for informing you of those changes.”
Schrage’s blog post detailed some of the proposed changes in the updated data use policy. They include:
• New tools for managing Facebook messages – replacing the “Who can
send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing
incoming messages.
• Changes to how Facebook refers to certain products, like instant personalization.
• Reminders about what’s visible to other people on Facebook. For
instance, when you hide things from your timeline, those posts are
visible elsewhere, like in news feed, on other people’s timelines, or in
search results.
• Tips on managing your timeline. For example, you can use tools on
your timeline or activity log to delete your own posts, or you can ask
someone else to delete a post in which you’re tagged.
Facebook users have until 9 a.m. on Nov. 28 to comment on the proposed changes here.
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Post from: SiteProNewses
