The way these changes have been implemented has created a sense of insecurity among the users. This has made many of the sites 350 million users see red. Now Facebook allows its users to choose their level of privacy, by letting them restrict access to either friends, friends of friends or everyone. It's a feature that has helped the site gain many users.
But with the recent change — unless users actively manage their privacy settings themselves — their information like Family and Relationship, Education and Work, and their posts will be made visible to everyone, regardless of what their previous privacy settings were. Online observers believe the revised settings are a tactical move by Facebook to get search engines to index more information from the website, in order to counter growing competition from microblogging sites like Twitter.
Electronic privacy groups are already up in arms against Facebook. Recently, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a legal complaint in the US against the social networking site's new privacy settings, claiming the changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook's own representations. |
Dr.Tabrez Ahmad,
Associate Professor of Law,
KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India,
Website: www.site.technolexindia.com
Blog: http://iplexindia.blogspot.com
Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/tabrezahmad7.
Blogs: http://www.blogger.com/profile/15337756250055596327
Blog: http://drtabrez.wordpress.com
http://tabrezahmad.typepad.com/blog/
Research Papers: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=1189281
