I think it is safe to say that you can expect Facebook to constantly update its Privacy Policy. As the months go on it becomes more clear that Facebook wants to be your passport to the internet. Everything you do on the internet should somehow be connected to Facebook… at least that is what Facebook believes. Hence the proposed revisions! As Facebook grows, its needs to open its Privacy Policy grows. As it integrates itself with more services, Facebook finds it needs to make more user information available to these services. So revising the Privacy Policy to reflect this growth and change is necessary.
Now what exactly do these changes consist of?
Well here are the Redline versions of Facebook’s Proposed Privacy Policy and Facebook’s Proposed Statement of Rights. Redline means you can see what they are deleting and adding (which makes for a much easier comparison).
Effectively, Facebook is trying to demonstrate that the information you have chosen to share is not “Personal Information” but more simply “Information About Yourself.” “Personal Information” has a connotation that this information is private and can only be shared at our own digression. The much more general “Information About Yourself” does not have that connotation. So if Facebook makes it over this hurdle of implementing these new policies, then the idea is that one would have a “whatever” concept in regards to the “Information About Yourself.”
This then goes into Facebook’s plans to share your information with Third Parties that Facebook has approved. So your information would automatically be shared with these Third Parties unless you set your own settings to not share your details. Oh, but this is no longer “Information You Share With Third Parties” but now “Sharing Information on Facebook.” Again, as Facebook grows the lines of what is considered Facebook, a Facebook Application, and a Facebook Third Party begin to blur and gray.
By the way, Facebook is probably the only Social Media service the alerts their users to their proposed policy changes. So while you do have a chance to complain about them, you also have a chance to learn how to keep the status quo where your information is concerned.
For more details on Facebook’s Proposed Changes you can visit the following sites:
Facebook Foreshadows New Features With Privacy Policy Tweaks from Tech Crunch
Here is some current feedback posted to Facebook’s Site Governance:
What do you think of these proposed changes?
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