[liberationtech] Fwd: [lauren at vortex.com: [ NNSquad ] Facebook changes reportedly expose at least 10 million accounts to public search that had previously been excluded]

[Robert Guerra]

By deploying the new search feature there might be a case to be made that the company has violated the privacy of those who have taken the conscious decision to pro-actively  opt-out of the pervasive information sharing features that get added all the time on Facebook.

Will be interesting to see if a test case emerges in Canada or other jurisdictions ( such as the EU) where there is strong level of federal privacy oversight.

Robert

--
R. Guerra
Phone/Cell: +1 202-905-2081
Twitter: twitter.com/netfreedom 
Email: rguerra at privaterra.org

On 2013-01-17, at 9:39 PM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:

> [ Perhaps some precautions might be appropriate for those using FB in
> less than hospitable circumstances. ---rsk ]
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com> -----
> 
>> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:05:22 -0800
>> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren at vortex.com>
>> To: nnsquad at nnsquad.org
>> Subject: [ NNSquad ] Facebook changes reportedly expose at least 10 million
>> 	accounts to public search that had previously been excluded
>> 
>> 
>> Facebook changes reportedly expose at least 10 million accounts to
>> public search that had previously been excluded
>> 
>> http://j.mp/10D1gMz  (ars technica)
>> 
>>    "Such profiles would hinder the progress of graph search, which relies
>>     on profile content to cull information (for instance, "women who like
>>     the TV show Homeland" or "Thai restaurants my friends have been to.")
>>     Facebook asserts that a "single-digit percentage" of profiles had
>>     previously opted out of being searchable. As Quartz points out, even
>>     one percent is now 10 million people, so the change does affect a
>>     large absolute swath of users."
>> 
>> - - -
>> 
>> Exposing profile information to public searching that was previously
>> excluded, without the affirmative consent of the parties involved, is
>> inexcusable even if "only" 10 million or so accounts were affected!
>> 
>> --Lauren--
>> Lauren Weinstein (lauren at vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren 
>> Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
>> Founder:
>> - Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org 
>> - PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
>> - Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
>> - Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
>> Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
>> Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
>> Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren 
>> Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----
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