Facebook, Privacy Policy, Carnegie Mellon study, and the need for Federal Safeguards

As part of the ERISA process, a Carnegie Mellon University Heinz School & CyLab research project was presented in June 2007 at a workshop on “Security Issues in Social Networking. “Imagined Communities: Awareness, information sharing and privacy in online social networks,” was the title of the presentation by Alessandro Acquisti (with Ralph Gross) [available along with other papers for download]. It included a survey of students in 2006 that explored their perceptions about how private was their data. Here’s one of the findings from the powerpoint presentation given in June. These should help galvanize policymakers into taking action–before the FTC is held responsible for failing to protect the nation’s youth.

“Facebook‘s privacy policy,revisited

“Facebook also collects information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging services. This information is gathered regardless of your use of the Web Site.”
67% believe that is not the case
“We use the information about you that we have collected from other sources to supplement your profile unless you specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done.”
70% believe that is not the case

“In connection with these offerings and business operations, our service providers may have access to your personal information for use in connection with these business activities.”
56% believe that is not the case
Control: perusal of privacy policy does not improve awareness

In the summary, they report that:

“Only a small percentage of Facebook users changes the highly permeable default privacy settings
As a consequence, a considerable number of users expose themselves to various privacy risks
An individual’s privacy concerns are only a weak predictor of his/her membership to the network
Also privacy concerned individuals join the network and reveal great amounts of personal information
Some users manage their privacy concerns by trusting their ability to control the information they provide and the external access to it
However, we find evidence of members’ misconceptions about the online community’s actual size and composition, and about the visibility of members’ profiles
We documented changes in information revelation behavior subsequent to pracy-related information exposure.”

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.

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