Calls to regulate social networks in the US are growing louder as Sen Charles Schumer (D-NY) has called on the Federal Trade Commission to set guidelines for how companies including Facebook and Twitter handle user data.
In a letter to the FTC, Sen Schumer said he was concerned that users were unwittingly sharing data they assumed was private with the entire internet, and that the sites made it too difficult for users to opt out of new settings that make information public by default. “The opt-out procedure is unclear, confusing, and you might even say hidden,” he said during a press conference.
Sen Schumer’s effort comes as regulators around the globe are grappling with the tricky issue of regulating social networks. In the UK, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia, regulators are considering how their laws may already apply to the social networks, and what new laws may be needed.
Yet even as services such as Facebook and Google move to make more personal information public by default — as Facebook did in December, and Google did with Buzz in February — regulators have so far stopped short of introducing any new legislation that would directly target these sites.
Sen Schumer said he was finally moved to action by recent changes made by Facebook that automatically share user data with select third party sites. Those changes began taking effect last week, as Facebook unleashed a new wave of powerful ‘social plug-ins’ at its annual F8 conference.
“These recent changes by Facebook fundamentally change the relationship between the user and the social networking site,” he said in a statement. “Previously, users had the ability to determine what information they chose to share and what information they wanted to keep private. Recent policy changes are fundamentally changing that relationship and there is little guidance on what social networking sites can and cannot do and what disclosures are necessary to consumers.”
In an unusually lengthy reply Facebook provided to ABC News, the company suggested Sen Schumer misunderstood the changes, and that the company was working to give users more, not less, control of their privacy.
