Senators Tell Facebook To Quit Sharing Users' Info

Hugh Pickens notes a USA Today story reporting that two US senators have joined Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in telling Facebook to quit sharing more of its users' data than they signed up for. Politico.com ups USA Today's ante, saying that it was three more senators, not two more, who joined Schumer's call: Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Al Franken (D-MN). The senators are asking the FTC to look at Facebook's controversial new information-sharing policies, arguing that the massively popular social network overstepped its bounds when it began sharing user data with other websites. Sen. Schumer said he learned about the new rules from his daughter, who is in law school, but added that he's noticed no difference on his own Facebook page, which, he assured reporters, "is very boring." "I can attest to that," deadpanned Franken, who made his living as a comedian before entering the Senate, and whose Facebook followers outnumber Schumer's by ten to one.

Re:Allow us to "opt-in"

[ircmaxell]

This. If they said it in the beginning, that's one thing. But telling us one thing, then later changing it and saying "well, all you need to do is tell us not to" is nothing more than a slimy practice. And I don't buy the "Well, we told you that we reserved the right to do it" argument. If they added controls to "opt-out" today, then they are acknowledging that there's more to it than what was written initially. What's the difference between that, and me going up to you on a busy street and saying "If you don't tell me no, your house is now mine" even if you didn't even hear it? Isn't that basically what they are doing here?

Re:Problem

[AnonymousClown]

All websites say in their "Terms of Service" or equivalent some variation of this:

"We reserve the right to change these terms at anytime."

So, it's not just Facebook, it every website on the net.

Re:turnabout?

[amicusNYCL]

The Senators aren't telling people how to use Facebook, they're telling Facebook how (not) to use their customer's data.

Re:It's kind of sad...

[mweather]

It amazes me that he ever made any sort of a living as a "comedian", given that his entire "funny" schtick (yes, I read his books... *shudder*) is calling his political opponents foul-mouthed names

You do realise the man was one of the original writers for SNL, right? He didn't get into political comedy until his comedy career's third decade.

Re:Free economy, regulate fraud

[cynyr]

Last i knew you could NOT make facebook purge your data from their systems after you quit. So thats the big problem here for me, if i get new terms when i log in, and i disagree, i should get a button that lets me gather a copy of my data and then make you delete it.

This wasn't without notice

[Anonymous Coward]

The first time I went to my own Facebook home page after this policy change, I had a big notification box right at the top telling me about it, and including a link to my own privacy settings to make changes if I wanted to. I had to dismiss that box or it would keep reappearing.

User Acknowledged

[stewbacca]

When Facebook added this "feature", the next time I logged in I was prompted with a big-ole dialog window informing me of all the changes, the implications of privacy, and how to change it if I didn't like the new settings.

That's all I really ask for and I don't find it unreasonable that Facebook is trying to get in as many areas as possible (through sharing everyone's stuff).

It's really easy to cancel a Facebook account too.

Re:What the Senators should have done

[Culture20]

They should have told American that they are dumbasses if they share all of their most personal thoughts online and if they don't want to the whole world to know what colour of poopie they made this morning the idiot users need to lock their profile the hell down.

Karma be damned. You're stupid, or hopefully just ignorant of what Facebook has been doing this last few years.
When I signed up for FB three and a half years ago, it was fairly easy to lock your profile down, setting all of the information about yourself to be "friends only". They even tightened it further and created a friend-groups mechanism and allowed you to assign special rights to specific wall posts (or types of posts) to just certain groups of friends (work, old friends, current, etc).

Then, the VC ran out, and monetization needed to happen. Beacon appeared. Profile Picture, networks, and friend lists became public, with no options to lock down. Most recently, all of the book, film, pasttime favorites, work history, education history, current city, and hometown were all forced public. What's strange is there are options to restrict them to "just friends", but the new ToS say they're public info, and people have tested them and found they are public despite the privacy controls. Essentially, information you once entered into FB under the previous promise of (and current implied) privacy is being retroactively classified as public data and being made available to partner websites and any joe user. Imagine a worst case scenario: 22 yo woman signs up for FB two years ago, has her profile totally locked down so that only her friends can see anything. So, she feels safe putting a pretty picture of herself as her profile pic, listing her current city, and doesn't mind "liking" the local bars and restaurants she frequents (extremely common), where she works, and listing her favorite books, movies, etc. Unless she's been a _lot_ more prudent then average joe about re-checking her profile with a different non-friended profile, all that info is now public. I did say worst case, right? Maybe she's got a stalker ex from another city and he now knows where she lives and works. She thought FB was keeping that info from him; not any more.

This isn't going to stop unless someone smacks Facebook, and the Senators are holding up their hands and counting slowly and clearly.

Re:It's kind of sad...

[Locke2005]

My bad... yes, I was thinking of Schwarzenegger, not Reagan. Reagan ran up record deficits both as Governor of California and as POTUS, and yet "fiscal conservatives" still claim him as their patron saint... go figure. Yes, he was a really likable guy, but his presidency appears to have been rather overrated.

Re:Problem

[donaggie03]

So? You make it a point to emphasize that it is a service that they provide to you. And somehow this makes it ok for them to change their terms of service at any time? Suppose I own a house cleaning business. Each of my customers signs a service agreement that says I will clean their house every week and I will then charge their credit card for a specific amount after each cleaning. The fine print says I can change the agreement at any time. A few weeks into the agreement, I decide to start charging the credit card twice as much as usual. Which is ok because I can change the agreement at any time right? Do you really think that logic would hold up in court?

Re:User Acknowledged

[Anubis IV]

Not quite correct, actually. You're thinking of two or three times ago that they changed the TOS. The latest change, which was within the last week, did not come with a dialog window informing you of the changes and how to go about fixing things. All it did, in fact, was move some of your potentially private information into the publicly accessible areas of the site, without any warning, opt-in, opt-out, or any other option offered.

Re:turnabout?

[amicusNYCL]

I do not believe, the government has the obligation to protect people from hurting themselves.

They aren't hurting themselves, they're being hurt by Facebook.

if joe blow says that I can't dance on saturday nights(completely random example), and it so does the majority, bam it's voted, they win, that's tyranny.

Tyranny for whom, for Joe Blow? Does Joe feel like he's living under a tyrant? If they have absolute power by definition, then why do they need to vote? Is it because they don't have absolute power? Is a group of people considered to be a single ruler? You quoted the definition of a tyranny, and then you went and gave an example which bears no relationship to a single ruler with absolute power. Any group of more than one person voting on an issue is by your definition not a tyranny. It doesn't really matter whether some people disagree with the outcome. Democracy doesn't mean that everyone needs to agree on one thing.