US Senators attack Facebook privacy policy

Facebook on Tuesday came under renewed attack over its privacy policy after four US senators launched a broadside at its plans to share information with third-party websites.Senators Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Al Franken and Mark Begich on Tuesday called on the world’s largest social networking site to stop automatically sharing user information with select websites and streamline its increasingly complex privacy settings.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3b7eb742-5250-11df-8b09-00144feab49a.htmlAlso see:Senators tell Facebook: tighten privacy policy [Reuters]
U.S. lawmakers told Facebook on Tuesday they were concerned about changes in its privacy policy that would allow personal information to be viewed by more than friends, and options on other websites that would allow third parties to save information about Facebook users and friends.In a letter to Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg dated April 27, Senators Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, Mark Begich and Al Franken objected to changes that made a user’s current city, hometown, likes, interests and friends publicly available, where they were previously only seen by friends.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042702969.htmlFTC says it is creating Internet privacy framework amid growing concerns
The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it plans to create guidelines on Internet privacy, amid a growing cry by privacy advocates and lawmakers to protect consumers from abuse of their personal data by social networks, search engines and location tracking on cellphones.The comments came after four senators called for greater enforcement and rules at the FTC on Tuesday, with troubling business features on social networking site Facebook that they said exposed users’ information to the public and to third-party advertisers trying to create profiles on those users.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/04/ftc_says_it_is_creating_intern.htmlSenators Ask Facebook for Privacy Fixes
Four senators are raising privacy concerns over new features that Facebook introduced last week and have asked the social networking company to roll back some of the changes.In a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, the senators took particular issue with Facebook’s “instant personalization,” a feature that allows a handful of Facebook partner Web sites like Yelp and Pandora to gain access to personal information about Facebook users.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/senators-ask-facebook-for-privacy-fixes/US senators get testy with Facebook over privacy
Two more U.S. Senators have taken issue with Facebook’s “opt-out” approach to recent privacy changes, asking the social networking site to change its ways.Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) will join Charles Schumer (D-NY) in sending a letter to Facebook showing disapproval of the way the site shares information with third-party sites, the Washington Post reports. Schumer said yesterday that he’s also asked the Federal Trade Commission to create privacy rules for social networking sites.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/344542/us_senators_get_testy_facebook_over_privacy/
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/042710-senators-get-testy-with-facebook.html