考研阅读精选：走在钢丝上的Facebook和隐私
Facebook and privacyWalking the tightrope
走在钢丝上的Facebook和隐私
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A FEW years ago, Facebook was forced to retreat from a new servicecalled Beacon. It tracked what the social network’s users were doingelsewhere on the web—which caused a huge fuss because of the loss ofpersonal privacy. At the time, Facebook promised to make strenuousefforts to better protect people’s information.
But apparentlythe firm has not been trying very hard. On November 29th America’sFederal Trade Commission (FTC) released the results of an investigationit had conducted of Facebook. They showed that the world's biggestsocial network, which now boasts more than 800m users, has been makinginformation public that it had pledged to keep private.
TheFTC’s findings come at a sensitive time for Facebook, which is preparingfor an initial public offering (IPO) that is almost certain to takeplace next year. Some recent reports have speculated that the firm mayseek a listing as early as next spring, and that it will try to raise awhopping $10 billion in an IPO that would value it at $100 billion. Toclear the way for an offering, Facebook badly needs to resolve some ofthe regulatory tussles over privacy that it has become embroiled in.
Hence the FTC's announcement, which came as part of a settlement struckbetween the commission and Facebook. The FTC’s investigationhighlighted a litany of instances in which the social network haddeceived its users. In what is perhaps the most damning of the findings,the agency documents that Facebook has been sharing people’s personalinformation with advertisers—a practice its senior executives haverepeatedly sworn it does not indulge in. The FTC also says that the firmfailed to make photos and videos on deactivated and deleted useraccounts inaccessible after promising to do so.
The settlementimposes a number of sanctions on Facebook. The company has agreed, amongother things, to an external audit of its privacy policies andpractices every two years for the next 20 years. And it has agreed tohenceforth seek users’ permission before making any changes thatoverride existing privacy settings. (In the past, the company oftenintroduced changes that made more data public by default, forcing peopleto “opt out” in order to keep their information private.)
In abid to minimize the fallout from this latest debacle, Mark Zuckerberg,Facebook’s boss, took to the company’s blog to apologize for thenetwork’s failings and to claim that Facebook has had “a good history ofproviding transparency and control” over users’ information. Criticsbeg to differ. “Zuckerberg is walking a privacy tightrope” by trying toserve both advertisers and users, says one skeptical privacy activist.“Sooner or later he is bound to trip up badly.”
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