Plans by Facebook to provide personal data to third parties without asking users for permission are being criticized by a prominent member of the German government. In an open letter to the social networking giant’s CEO, Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner threatens to delete her profile if the California company doesn’t do more to protect its members’ privacy.Facebook, which started as a modest student network, has now brought together a significant part of the Internet-connected world. The Web site has 400 million registered members, including 7.5 million Germans and hundreds of celebrities. One of them is Isle Aigner. But now Germany’s minister for agriculture and consumer protection, who is part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet, is threatening to delete her Facebook profile.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,687286,00.htmlAlso see:German minister pens open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, threatens to quit Facebook
German Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner has written an open letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, expressing her concerns about Facebook’s plans to further relax data protection regulations on the social networking site.She refers to the recent tweaks the company made to its privacy policy in anticipation of new features that will likely be launched at Facebook’s upcoming F8 developer conference.
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/04/05/german-minister-pens-open-letter-to-mark-zuckerberg-threatens-to-quit-facebook/
German Minister Launches Attack on Facebook
Plans by Facebook to provide personal data to third parties without asking users for permission are being criticized by a prominent member of the German government. In an open letter to the social networking giant’s CEO, Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner threatens to delete her profile if the California company doesn’t do more to protect its members’ privacy