In March, Facebook proposed that there should be a number of changes to its privacy policy in order to allow it eventually share personal data with 'pre-approved' third party websites. Such information, should you be logged into Facebook and then connect to a third party website, as your name, gender, friends and connections, username, profile picture and not forgetting any content that you have marked to share as per your 'everyone' privacy setting configuration. These pre-approved data leaks are not proving popular amongst Facebook users.
When Sophos conducted a poll to see how popular this chjange might be amongst Facebook users I was expecting the dissenting voices to be loud, but I wasn't esxpecting 95 percent of those asked to say that the changes are a bad thing. The study, conducted amongst 680 readers on Sophos's website and Facebook page, found that only two percent in support of the changes and three percent who did not understand them.
Facebook, of course, points out that only a small number of pre-approved sites will be offered this feature, and users will be given the option to disable the feature. Indeed, in a carefully worded response to the dissent, Facebook insists that it would only offer personal data to "carefully selected partners" and those partners would be "required to provide an easy and prominent method" for users to opt out directly from their websites and delete any cached personal data.
"The results of this poll send out a very clear message to Facebook - its users aren't happy. Most Facebook users still don't know how to set their Facebook privacy options safely, finding the whole system confusing and long- winded," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "The onus should not be on Facebook users to "opt out" of this new feature but to "opt in" - making a conscious choice to engage, rather than having to make a conscious decision to decline. Once again, it feels like online privacy is being eroded by stealth. Too many websites are chipping away at their members' privacy and security, potentially exposing their personal data to third parties that were never in the equation when they first signed-up for the service. Facebook would be doing its hundreds of millions of users a service if it thought again about this new privacy policy".
