It’s doubtful that changing the look of its settings page will do anything to calm down users who have been upset with the way the company has been handling its data.
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Facebook is untangling the mess that is its privacy settings and tools, by making it a lot easier for users … Around 300,000 Facebook users installed the app, and by granting access to their contacts, the data mining reached an estimated 50 million users.
Facebook announced a series of changes on Wednesday to give users more control over their data, after a huge data scandal which has wiped more than $100 billion from its stock market value. “If any such downstream entity misused data from Facebook, what is the protection available to the data subject?”, said one of the queries in the notice.
Facebook is trying to win back the public by showing it cares about their privacy.
Lastly, its privacy shortcuts page now has more visuals and explanations for what each option does. Recent consumer outrage has underscored how Facebook’s troubling privacy practices were hidden in the fine print and buried deep in its privacy settings. The dashboard brings together what the firm said “were the most critical controls into a single place”.
Facebook has responded saying: “We are disappointed that the New Zealand Privacy Commissioner asked us to provide access to a year’s worth of private data belonging to several people and then criticised us for protecting their privacy”.
Wagner believes the real sign of change at Facebook is its CEO’s behavior. The rules are created to make it easier for consumers to give and withdraw consent for the use of their data.
The company also says in a website posting that it does not collect the content of text messages or calls.
The updates include improved access to Facebook’s user settings and tools to easily search for, download and delete personal data stored by Facebook. That’s where people can go to delete information or download a copy.
The program allowed specific targeting of audiences using offline data about them in the U.S., Brazil, France, Germany, the U.K., Australia and Japan.
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The communications experts that spoke with Spectrum News say even though Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will be testifying before some congress subcommittees about the issue, they don’t anticipate much of anything will happen because the federal government has been leaning toward deregulation policies.
