Statements on Facebook and Privacy

From: Jeff Chester, Executive Director, Center for Digital Democracy

Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D. Professor of Communication, American University. Author of Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet (MIT Press, 2007)

Chester: “Facebook still doesn’t really want to face-up to its many privacy problems. While it modified one aspect of the Beacon system as a result of organized pressure and regulatory concerns, serious safeguards will be necessary to address the range of practices in Facebook’s new targeted marketing system (from social ads to insights to the role of third party developers). Facebook’s members should have the power to decide how their data is to be collected, analyzed and used for commercial purposes. This will require Facebook to more seriously address how its new marketing system undermines user privacy. For example, the Beacon fix still permits Facebook to collect, store, analyze, and potentially use a member’s purchasing data.

“The Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory authorities here and abroad will need to address how the structure of Facebook threatens user privacy. Facebook’s senior managers should also embrace a far-reaching approach to privacy that will make this social network a digital environment that nurtures the individual rights of users. CDD, along with its allies in the privacy community, intends to pursue this case.”

Montgomery: “Facebook should be commended for today’s decision to change some of its online marketing practices in response to user backlash and consumer group pressure. But the slight alterations the company has made in its Beacon program will not address the much larger, and more troubling privacy problems raised by the site’s new digital marketing apparatus. Facebook and other popular social networks have ushered in a new era of behavioral profiling, data mining and ‘nanotargeting’ that will quickly become state of the art unless additional consumer and regulatory interventions are made. These practices raise particularly troubling issues for teens, who are increasingly living their lives on these sites and are largely unaware of how their every move is being tracked. The Federal Trade Commission and the Congress need to take a very close look at Facebook and other online platforms, and develop rules for ensuring meaningful privacy protections.”

Author: jeff

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. A former journalist and filmmaker, Jeff's book on U.S. electronic media politics, entitled "Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy" was published by The New Press in January 2007. He is now working on a new book about interactive advertising and the public interest. View all posts by jeff