Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is now signaling a change from the previous version of CEO Mark Zuckerberg views over privacy. Previously, Zuckerberg said that privacy was not a social norm anymore in the society that is likely to share everything. However, the change is mainly limited to setting its definition of privacy or taking a middle route by monetizing privacy as well keeping users at ease.
Giving respect to privacy
In June, the company expanded its ad network and reformatted the settings for the ads display on its news feed elaborating why users are seeing a particular ad. In April, the social networker made an attempt to detail users on their privacy settings.
Also, in April, Facebook made another change with the help of which users can log into third-party apps without sharing their personal information.
When asked about the privacy issued, Zuckerberg said during the call, “There is just a lot more that people want to express and that they need the tools to express with smaller groups of people, not just one person at a time but smaller groups, as well.”
Controversial Facebook studies
The social networking site has not been in the good books of the users, when it comes to privacy as the sole purpose of the platform is to share data, which in turn mobilizes the business. But Facebook has failed to understand the things that users want to share and the ones they don’t want others to know, which has wafted the hot discussions all over the world.
Recently, the company conducted a mood-manipulation inviting lot of criticism from users as well as privacy advocates. It seems like the discussion will not be sedated so easily. In June, Facebook gathered information from all over the web to know more about the kinds of ads to be shown to the users, which is a common practice among the advertising companies.
However, privacy watchdogs from the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, which is a consumer group from the United States and Europe taking up number of social policy issues, said that such experiments will increase the amount of data with Facebook manifold and that users were kept in the dark for any such experiments.
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Irish Data Protection Commission received a letter from the United States and European supporters of privacy in which the details about Facebook’s operation in Europe is given. According to the advocates, recent Facebook ad policy should be reviewed to see if they are in-line with the United States and European law.
There was no immediate action or statement released from Facebook, but gradually the company is making all sorts of efforts to enjoy the trust of the users by revising what it shows on the privacy options.
