By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 10:27am
Facebook is once again rolling out changes to its user interface, including new Applications and Games Dashboards that it says will “mak[e] it easier for you to find and interact with applications.” And, once again, these changes affect your privacy: now other users can easily find out which applications you use, whether that’s a popular game, a dating app, or our Facebook quiz. Just like the changes that made Friends Lists and Fan Pages part of your “Publicly Available Information” (PAI) that could not be restricted or made private in any way (though Facebook later relented and allowed you to hide your Friends List on your profile—but only if you hide it from everyone!), this takes information that was hard to find and puts it front and center.
By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 5:32pm
Today, in response to an inquiry by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Facebook announced plans to enhance user privacy over the next year. Some of these plans address third party applications, like quizzes and games, that have access to a lot of your personal information.
Wondering what this is all about? Concerned about your privacy on Facebook?
By Chris Conley, Technology and Civil Liberties Fellow, ACLU of Northern California at 12:00am
We recently blogged that Facebook's default privacy settings allow quizzes and other applications to peer into your profile - even if it's your friend, and not you, who takes the quiz!
But don't take our word for it. If you're a Facebook user, check out our very own quiz. It's a behind-the-scenes look at all the personal details a Facebook app can collect about you and your friends — and some steps you can take to keep your private information from landing in the wrong hands.
Ever whiled away five minutes on a Facebook quiz, finding out what cartoon character is your look-alike or how your IQ stacks up? These quizzes may seem like a perfectly harmless way to spend a few spare minutes. But have you stopped to think about what these quizzes are learning about you and how that info could be used? Take our quiz and learn more!
Facebook, hardly a stranger to controversy, set off yet another firestorm recently when it changed its Terms of Use. The previous terms of service explicitly stated that Facebook’s license to use user-created content expired as soon as the user deleted the content or cancelled her account:
You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
The new terms, however, removed this sentence, suggesting that Facebook retained a license to user-created or uploaded content forever, whatever the user might do. This small change triggered a storm of outrage, eventually leading Facebook to reverse course and withdraw the new Terms of Use.
