FACEBOOK SLAMMED FOR PROPOSED CHANGES TO PRIVACY POLICY

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, April 8 (Bernama) -- The controversial changes Facebook is
planning to make to its privacy policy are being universally slammed by users,
according to a survey by leading information technology (IT) security company
Sophos.

The study released here Thursday and conducted among 680 readers on Sophos'
website and Facebook page found that an overwhelming 95 per cent of the
respondents thought the privacy changes were "a bad thing".

Only two per cent of the respondents polled said that they would support the
change, with the remaining three per cent saying they did not understand what
changes Facebook was proposing.

Last month, Facebook proposed a number of controversial changes to its
privacy policy, paving the way for it to share personal information with
"pre-approved" third-party websites.

Sophos said if a member logged into Facebook and then visit a third-party
website, that site would be able to access the member's name, profile picture,
gender, friends and connections, user ID, and any content shared using the
"Everyone" privacy setting.

Consequently, users might find that when they visit a website it already
knows who they are, their date of birth, where they live, and who their friends
are, without ever having given the site explicit permission to access that data.

According to Facebook, only a small number of pre-approved sites would be
offered this feature, and users would be given the option to disable the
feature.

Sophos said as a result of a rise in public consternation around these
changes, Facebook published a response which sought to justify its position and
to reassure users that the company would only offer personal data to "carefully
selected partners".

-- BERNAMA



Delete & Prev | Delete & Next