Facebook Strips ‘Privacy’ From New ‘Data Use’ Policy - Mar. 22, 2012
If your friends use apps, your info is open to them.
A Facebook privacy policy revision intended to make the site’s methods more transparent is instead kicking up a fresh firestorm.
Facebook posted a draft version of its revised terms on March 15 and gave the site’s users a one-week comment period to weigh in with questions and suggestions. The changes include many semantic tweaks, like stripping the word “privacy” out of Facebook’s “privacy policy,” which is now called a “data use policy.”
That sounds scary, but Facebook says the changes to its policy documents don’t reflect any actual changes in how the site operates. Instead, what it calls “clarifications” are aimed at more clearly describing to users what Facebook does.
That clarity is freaking some members out. Many responded on Facebook’s comment page with a wholesale rejection of the new terms. On the German-language version of the proposal, more than 32,000 Facebook members issued the same one-sentence protest: “Ich lehne die Änderungen ab.”
That roughly translates to: “I reject the changes.”
The provision drawing the most heat from commenters is a line describing what data applications can grab.
Facebook’s current policy says: “When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application.” Its proposed revision amends that line to: “When you or others who can see your content and information use an application, your content and information is shared with the application.”
The idea that apps your friends install can access your information disturbed many of Facebook’s commenters. As one put it: “Strongly disagree — why should I be dragged into apps my friends are involved with?”
You already are. Facebook’s current terms allow apps to tap into all of the information that the app’s users have access to, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told CNNMoney.