Facebook’s privacy problem is getting worse. Not only is the dominant social-networking company facing ongoing resistance to new privacy controls from users and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), but now it faces a Federal Trade Commission complaint filed by the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy knowledge Center.

Facebook recently rolled out a new privacy protocol that it promoted as giving users more control by privacy settings. With the controls, users can decide whether to invent undoubtful aspects of their Facebook profiles publicly available on the Net, or only available to friends.

Rollback Demanded

But the controls were limited, and assured elements, such as the friends list, were made public by default. As originally released, users had no way to change that setting. After a swell of criticism, Facebook allowed users to compose their friends list private.

Another complaint was that too much data was made public by default. The EFF complained that users who didn’t get around to

changing the defaults or who didn’t understand the implications would be injured by the new policy.

In its complaint, EPIC formally requested that the FTC investigate Facebook, enjoin “its unfair and misleading business practices,” and require Facebook to protect users’ privacy. Specifically, EPIC asked the FTC to require Facebook to restore the previous privacy settings, allowing users to control disclosure of personal info and to fully opt out of revealing data to third-party developers. EPIC additionally demanded that Facebook form its data-collection practices clearer and easier to understand.

Third-Party Dangers

EPIC took special aim at the dangers in allowing third-party developers motorized access to much of a user’s personal knowledge. Facebook permits third-party applications to access user data at the moment a user visits an application web site. According to Facebook, third-party applications receive publicly available knowledge automatically, and additional knowledge when users authorize it or connect a Facebook detail.

EPIC…

Original post by dhiram