Facebook hit by privacy blow
June 18, 2009 (Financial Times)
A recent article, written by Richard Waters and published on 18 June 2009 in the Financial Times, discussed the growing concern that European privacy regulators have regarding the access and security of one’s personal information on social networks. The article is printed in its entirety below:
European privacy regulators could be about to throw a spanner into the works of attempts by social networking sites such as Facebook to find new ways to increase profits as they try to restrict the way internet groups release personal data.
The European move marks the first attempt by regulators to address the “open” internet platforms that the social networks, led by Facebook, have rushed to create. By letting other applications ride on top of their systems, tapping into personal data about their members, the networks have sought both to tie in users for longer and create money-making opportunities.
However, regulators say tighter rules are needed to protect personal data given to these third-party developers. In particular, they believe developers should be subject to tough European Union privacy and data protection rules, even when the companies concerned are located far from Europe.
At the same time, they argue that many corporate marketers who have turned to new forms of social media as a way to reach consumers should also be subjected to stiffer regulations.
In some cases, the stricter rules could even extend to private individuals who have attracted large numbers of “friends” online, particularly if some are people they do not know personally.
The views are contained in an unpublished opinion paper from a group made up of Europe’s national data-protection and privacy commissioners. The group, known as the Article 29 working party, acts as an advisory body to the European Commission. While the views do not carry any formal authority, they are designed to guide individual national regulators.
Given the growing importance of applications used on social networks, the rules amount to “a road map for their business future”, said Jeff Chester, a US privacy advocate. “Users don’t know their information is being collected and used,” by third parties, he added.
Marc Rotenberg, head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in the US, praised the European regulators for tackling a thorny issue.
“We’ve been concerned about the growing third-party use of personal information,” he said, adding that little was known about exactly how much information social networks turn over to application developers, or how they use it. “If nothing else, it will lead to greater accountability,” he said.
Pressure from members has already forced Facebook to give users more control over data, echoing the European regulators’ steps, said Mr Rotenberg. The company recently dropped its new terms of service after protests from users, and also tightened the arrangements for a new adveritsing system, known as Beacon, that disclosed information about users’ purchases.
Facebook said that the web industry was in need of a regulatory framework that made it possible for companies to ”continue to innovate and provide people with useful websites to meet their needs.”
It added: ”The opinion issued by the Article 29 working group on social networking services is an important step in providing the industry with practical guidance for their operations in the EU. It will now need to be assessed in detail by all companies with services in this area.”
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YOUnite's patented technology offers a unique solution to the problem of data security and specifically addresses the issue of data control and access to personal information through the notion of "distributed sharing of personal identity attributes". By applying YOUnite's patented technology to the social network scenario in particular, a user would be able to decide what pieces of information would be accessible by which individuals. Not only does YOUnite's patented technology enable a user to grant permissions to specific pieces of data on an individual basis, it enables the user to take those permissions away at any time. Therefore, the user has complete control of their personal information with complete granularity.
In this particular example, a YOUnite enabled Facebook, would allow the individual to control his or her own data within a the social network and thereby specifically address the concerns raised by the European privacy regulators. The user would now decide exactly who could, and more importantly, who could not access personal data that is stored within the social network's data base. This would not only apply to the user's "friends" or "groups", but would also serve as a means to prevent third-party access to the user's personal information without their knowledge or explicit consent. The notion of selective sharing of personal information is extremely powerful and when augmented into the the social network environment, YOUnite's patented technology provides a unique and elegant solution to privacy and security issues.
For more information, please visit our website and while you're there, read through our Resources Section for specific Use Cases and White Papers.