It was reported today that Facebook was close in settling a privacy settlement with the US government over numerous privacy complaints. Wall Street Journal reported today that the privacy issues with Facebook was a grave concern and now Facebook was close to settling this with the FTC. The complaint was that Facebook mislead its users about what it did with their personal information.
Under the terms of the settlement Facebook would have to obtain each member’s consent before making any “material retroactive changes” to its privacy policies that affect them. This means that Facebook would have to ask its users for their consent before sharing their data in new and inventive ways. WSJ also reported from sources close to the issue that under the new terms, Facebook would have to submit to regular independent privacy audits. It is being said that these audits could be a fact of its life for the next 20 years.
This goes back to all what we have been saying that Facebook sold and made money out of user’s private information. We had reported this here. Facebook claims to have “worked” on improving privacy but the issues remain. Even Anonymous had threatened Facebook of dire consequences if this was not resolved. You can read that here.