[governance] Facebook customer outreach on privacy policy backfires

[michael gurstein]

(lots of implications here for Internet Governance...

M

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=69550

Facebook customer outreach on privacy policy backfires
Facebook's recent attempt at playing democracy are perhaps a good example of
a Web site that's gone too far with user engagement and promised more than
it is able, or willing to deliver.

Facebook held a governance vote that closed yesterday and received more than
650,000 votes from its site users. In that vote 88 per cent voted for
"Existing Documents: The current SRR and Data Use Policy" while a mere 12
per cent voted for "Proposed Documents: The proposed SRR and Data Use
Policy."

If you have no idea what that really means, you can be excused. Facebook's
use of legal jargon is only one of the layers of confusion the social
network has created around this issue in an attempt to do what it wants to
do while also trying to be able to say that it did its best to involve site
users in the decision. Basically, the vote comes down to a yes or no
question on whether users wanted to allow Facebook to share their personal
data with its business partners, such as recent acquisition Instagram.

So despite the opaque language used by Facebook - which was in a poll held
in the Facebook Site Governance app - 88 per cent of voters still said "no,
don't share my personal data." But Facebook is going ahead to do so in any
case, because the poll didn't reach the 30 per cent required threshold
imposed by Facebook, so they only have to treat it as a matter of guidance
(meaning they can ignore it if it doesn't suit their business interests.)


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