Facebook Privacy issues ghost is back to haunt again. Facebook users are opposing very strongly the new proposed Facebook privacy changes which reportedly allow the site to share one user’s information with other sites.
Presently facebook rules state that it has to ask a user if he/she wants to share that particular information like name, friends, photos etc with other sites. But under the proposed new facebook privacy settings, facebook will not be obliged to ask user for approval before sharing some limited user information with third party websites.
So, under the new policy, it is completely facebook’s prerogative to decide which sites it believes to be trustworthy and therefore shares your information when you visit or use that site, with the condition that your facebook login is in place (you are logged into facebook).
It has been said that users will have the option to opt-out but not clear how that will happen. Facebook has not divulged any details on specifics.
The facebook blog post in which Facebook Deputy General Counsel Michael Richter announced the proposed changes, has more than 925 comments. Mostly negative. Users are not happy with the fact that they have to opt-out of the default sharing feature , meaning their information will be shared by default if they fail to opt-out.
One comment says, “Why isn’t opt-in the default for all public disclosure of information? The next time Facebook changes its policy from opt-in to opt-out, I’ll be gone,”
Another says, “Has Facebook compared the projected revenue gained from this proposed change to to the projected revenue *lost* by the number of users (including myself) that will be driven away?”
Similar situation was faced by facebook in 2007 over Beacon and facebook had to settle a $9.5 million lawsuit last December because of that.
Then again in December facebook privacy settings were updated in an effort to make people parts of their facebook profile public. But it was not taken well by users when they found out that their friends lists were becoming public while their facebook profile was not and finally facebook had to restore the privacy settings.
It appears that all this negative feedback will make facebook think hard before making the announced privacy changes effective.