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Is Facebook Having Another Privacy Disconnect?The very first sentence on Facebook's privacy guide page states: "You should have control over what you share." That seems fairly simple, doesn't it? But many of Facebook's recent actions, such as its much-criticized "privacy transition," have made it harder for users to retain control over their information. Is this week more of the same? Earlier this week, following up on its recent policy changes, Facebook announced its plans to create more dynamic profiles using "Connections." What exactly counts as a connection wasn't clearly defined either time, but seems to include things like friends lists, likes and interests, events, groups, and activities. (Today's announcement of the Social Graph API includes News Feed, Wall, Notes, Photos, and Videos as "connections" too, but Facebook may be overusing the word to mean different things.) More importantly, it also isn't clear whether users will have real control over how their connections are shared. Both Facebook's Monday announcement and its recent policy changes have suggested that users cannot prevent applications, pages, and other third parties from accessing these connections. (They may be able to "hide" them from other Facebook users, but not from the government, advertisers, or anyone else with the ability and incentive to create apps or pages.) However, today's new documents for developers point to the Extended Permissions page that requires that applications and pages to explicitly ask the user before accessing various "connections," including interests, events, groups, and location. If Facebook believes that you "should have control over what you share," it should resolve this by giving users real control over whether their connections can be accessed by apps and pages. Doing so still won't resolve other issues, like the "app gap" that allows your friends' applications to view your personal information without your knowledge or consent, but it would be one step in the right direction. Otherwise, the only way you can keep control of your information is to refuse to use Facebook to share or connect at all. And that's not what we mean by control. So don't let Facebook take away control over your personal information! Tell Facebook that you want to have control over your friends, groups, events, and interests so that you — and not Facebook, the government, or anyone else — choose how and when they are shared! Demand control of your personal information — Demand Your dotRights!
Google's New Transparency Tool: A Window Into Government SurveillanceWe've known for a long time that electronic privacy law is woefully outdated. But what we haven't known is how often the government is taking advantage of this fact to engage in a shopping spree in the treasure trove of personal information being collected by companies like Google. So we're happy to see Google's just-released Government Requests tool, which is the company's attempt to shine some light on how often governments around the world request user information (and content removal) from Google. The ACLU has called for this type of disclosure for years and we applaud Google for taking this important first step to help Congress and the American people understand what's really going on and why it's time to demand a privacy upgrade that includes more transparency around when and how the government demands information from Google. Google's Government Request Transparency Tool: What It Says — And What It Doesn't Google's new tool displays the number of "user requests" that Google received from various governments from July to December 2009. According to the tool, the company received thousands of such requests from the U.S. government during that period — thousands of requests digging into the intimate details of individual lives that are captured in emails, search histories, reading and viewing logs, and the like. And if Google is receiving thousands of requests every six months, how many more are going out to Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and the thousands of other online services that we use every day? But that number may understate the actual case for three reasons. First, Google's tool only tracks requests that are received as part of an official criminal investigation — which would exclude, for example, the infamous DOJ subpoena asking for millions of users' search queries, something that was not part of an official criminal investigation. Second, Google's tool only counts the number of requests it receives, not the number of user records that were requested. So that single DOJ subpoena seeking millions of records would only counts as a single request! Finally, Google is barred by law from disclosing the number of requests it receives pursuant to National Security Letters, although we know that upwards of 50,000 of these secret government requests are issued every year. All told, the requests that show up in Google's tool are just the tip of the iceberg. So this is a great first step in increasing transparency — but it is only a first step. We hope that Google will continue to improve this tool to shine more light on how many non-criminal requests for user records it receives, break those down by type, provide more information on how many users were or would have been affected by those requests, and explore ways to disclose how it has responded to those requests (which is admittedly difficult to do). Demand Your dotRights — Demand Transparency As Part of Electronic Privacy Reform! The ACLU believes that transparency is an essential part of electronic privacy reform. As technology continues to evolve, our best hope of keeping privacy up to date is to ensure that we know how the government is using (or abusing) the current law to demand access to our personal information. That's why we think a "Wiretap Report for the Internet" is a key element to modernizing the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (PDF). But we need your help to get Congress moving and get the privacy update we need. Please support our efforts to ensure that privacy isn't left behind as we move into the modern world by asking Congress to update ECPA!
Is Facebook Unliking Privacy?(Originally posted on the ACLU of Northern California's Bytes and Pieces blog.) Today, Facebook released proposed changes to its privacy policy and its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Facebook's newest changes seem to be designed to encourage users to share more information with applications and sites that they visit and use, which fits in with the string of other changes that have been happening on Facebook and with Mark Zuckerberg’s world view on changing social norms. There are some definite positives in these changes, including one we have called for before: greater control over the user's profile page, allowing the user to decide whether her friends list, fan pages, and everything but her name and profile picture are available on her own profile. The new privacy policy also provides clearer descriptions of some of the ways information is shared on the service, including a much better description of the information that applications and pages can see about you (including what happens when one of your friends runs the app or visits the page). Unfortunately, this last change also highlights the “app gap” issue that we have written about many times, and the proposed changes would actually make that worse by allowing third party pages and applications to use and store more information without increasing users' ability to control or opt out of such access. Facebook needs to hear your voice demanding that it keep user privacy and control at the core of its service. Please visit Facebook's site governance page or sign our petition and tell Facebook to give you full control over your personal information! And don't forget to join our new privacy campaign, Demand Your dotRights! Today's Changes Highlight the "App Gap" Under Facebook’s current policies, your data, including sensitive information such as your relationship status and photos you post, can be accessed not only by any application you run but also by any application or quiz that one of your friends runs. You can limit the information that applications and pages visited by your friends can see about you (for instructions, see our resource page), but you cannot prevent these applications from seeing “publicly available information” including your name, gender, and your friends list. That means that a lot of personal information about you can flow to third parties even if you never run an application. Facebook’s current privacy policy does place some limits on how applications and websites could use the personal information they collected from you, however. It only allowed applications and partner web sites to “use the data you receive for your application, and . . . only use it in connection with Facebook.” Further, they were required to “delete all data [they] received from [Facebook] relating to any user who deauthorizes, disconnects, or otherwise disassociates from [their] application unless otherwise permitted in our Developer Principles and Policies.” Unfortunately, both of these requirements have been eliminated in the proposed new Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Instead, Facebook Platform applications and Facebook Connect web sites are now allowed to store data they gather from the Facebook users they interact with and use that data for their own purposes (though when they access information about that user's friends, they are only allowed to use this "friend data" in connection with the current user). The new policy does bar developers from transferring data to ad networks or data brokers and requires them to delete user data if specifically asked to do so by a user. However, it places the burden on the user to track or determine which sites and applications might store information about them rather than being certain that any application they stop using must delete their information. Furthermore, Facebook appears to be defining a new category of personal information called “Connections.” This includes your connections to your friends (ie: your friends list) but also your links to “family members, the city you live in, and restaurants and bands you like.” It is not clear whether this new category includes things like events, groups, and other ways that Facebook users interact with each other, but it potentially could encompass almost anything that involves linking with another Facebook user, page, or application. And while the new privacy policy allows you to “hide” connections on your own profile page, it explicitly states that these connections will always be available to any application or page that you OR YOUR FRIENDS use (with the single exception that your friends' applications cannot access your friends list). Finally, Facebook has added a new category of partner sites, called "Facebook-Enhanced" sites, that can access your connections and other general information even before you allow them to do so. Facebook has yet to unveil its full plan for these sites, but they could present another threat to privacy. This means that, if these changes go into effect, you will be able to hide your connections from your friends but not from applications that your friends run or Facebook-enabled sites they visit! Your gender, your fan pages, and maybe even your groups and events will be available to any application your friends choose to use, and you will have no ability to control that (unless you want to have no friends at all, we suppose). Does that make sense to you? Tell Facebook: More Sharing? Then More Control! It doesn't to us. If Facebook wants to give Connect sites and Platform applications more freedom to collect and use information, it needs to ensure that user privacy is not left behind. In particular, Facebook needs to make sure that users have the ability to fully opt out of sharing information with applications and sites. This includes providing stronger default privacy settings and giving users the ability to prevent applications from accessing their own information instead of being forced to rely on their friends to make choices for them. So please speak up and tell Facebook what you want! Visit Faceook's site governance page and tell them to allow you to control your own personal information, including preventing applications from seeing your “connections” and other data. And please sign our petition and push Facebook to protect your privacy as it continues to evolve! Demand a privacy upgrade! Demand Your dotRights! Tags: Facebook
Is Facebook’s Application Dashboard Missing a Privacy Gauge?Facebook is once again rolling out changes to its user interface, including new Applications and Games Dashboards that it says will “mak[e] it easier for you to find and interact with applications.” And, once again, these changes affect your privacy: now other users can easily find out which applications you use, whether that’s a popular game, a dating app, or our Facebook quiz. Just like the changes that made Friends Lists and Fan Pages part of your “Publicly Available Information” (PAI) that could not be restricted or made private in any way (though Facebook later relented and allowed you to hide your Friends List on your profile—but only if you hide it from everyone!), this takes information that was hard to find and puts it front and center. Facebook does seem to have learned something from the many criticisms of its recent privacy transition. There are two notable improvements in the Applications and Games Dashboard as compared to that debacle: (1) Facebook has actually created a privacy setting at the bottom of the Applications and Websites that controls who can see your Application and Games activities, and (2) it has set this to “only friends” by default. We’ve talked quite a bit about the importance of default privacy settings, and as those go, “only friends” is certainly an improvement from defaulting this setting to “everyone” (or, worse, making it PAI that cannot be restricted). But even this setting is more permissive than the previous situation, when no one could easily find out which applications you used—and apart from a paragraph at the bottom of a blog post that few readers may see, Facebook has done very little to advertise the consequences of this change or the availability of new settings (one of the few things we praised during the last Facebook overhaul). To change your own settings, go to the Applications and Websites privacy page and use the bottom control for “Activity on Applications and Games Dashboard.” You can choose one of the basic options, or the “Custom” option that allows you to share this information with only selected friends, to block certain friends from seeing this information, or to let nobody else see it at all. Real control over information means giving people the information they need to make choices about what information to share before they share, not making changes and then allowing those who realize the implications to opt out. We hope Facebook will continue to work towards giving users this kind of control over their personal information so they can connect and communication without paying with their privacy. Please join us and the Demand Your dotRights campaign as we continue to push companies to give us more control over our own information! You can help by signing our petition demanding that Facebook give you better control over your own information. Demand a privacy upgrade—Demand Your dotRights! Tags: Facebook
Quiz Facebook: Will We Have Control over Our Own Information?Today, in response to an inquiry by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Facebook announced plans to enhance user privacy over the next year. Some of these plans address third party applications, like quizzes and games, that have access to a lot of your personal information. Wondering what this is all about? Concerned about your privacy on Facebook? If you’re a Facebook user, check out the ACLU of Northern California's very own quiz. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at all the personal details a Facebook app can collect about you and your friends – and some steps you can take to keep your private information from landing in the wrong hands (including changing your own privacy settings)! (And, yes, we know it's a little weird to warn you about Facebook quizzes by asking you to take a Facebook quiz – but at least you know who we are and that we are committed to living up to our privacy policy, unlike many quiz authors who haven't posted a privacy policy at all!) Today’s Facebook Quizzes Get a Failing Grade for Privacy Even if your Facebook profile is "private," when you take a quiz, an unknown quiz developer could be getting access to almost everything in your profile: your religious views, sexual orientation, political affiliation, pictures, and groups. Facebook quizzes also have access to most of the info on your friends’ profiles. This means that if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information too. (But, again, don’t just take our word for it: take our quiz and see for yourself!) And Facebook’s current restrictions on the collection and use of personal information by applications are simply inadequate. Although Facebook’s Terms of Service require that applications limit the collection and use of information, enforcing terms like these is really difficult. That means that random developers who choose to ignore the Terms of Service could potentially sweep up vast amount of personal information about you and your friends – and once they’ve collected it, they could easily sell it, share it, or even turn it over to the government. This is a major privacy hole, and Facebook needs to take stronger steps to address this problem than just writing a sentence in a rarely-read document. Facebook Responds – But We Still Need Your Help In response to the Privacy Commissioner’s investigation, Facebook has committed to taking several steps to improve user privacy. As part of these changes, Facebook needs to ensure that users are truly in control of their own information. That means changing the default privacy settings so that each user, and not that user’s friends, can decide whether to share her information with a third-party application. That's where you come in. Learn what you can do to protect yourself right now - and help us pressure Facebook to make meaningful changes in the coming months!
Don't let Facebook's default settings force you to silently pay with your privacy when you – or your friends – use Facebook. Demand that Facebook upgrade its privacy controls to give you control of your personal info. Demand Your dotRights! Tags: Facebook
Google: Don't Close the Book on Reader PrivacyThe ACLU of Northern California, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at Berkeley Law School sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt (PDF) today. It was about books. Why books? Google is planning to dramatically expand its book service, Google Book Search. The good news is that millions of books will be available for browsing, reading, and purchasing online. But the bad news is that Google is leaving reader privacy behind. What you choose to read says a lot about who you are, what you value, and what you believe. You should be able to read about politics, health, or anything else without worrying that someone is looking over your shoulder. That’s why the ACLU has fought alongside libraries and bookstores time and again to defend the privacy of readers. Now we need your help to protect reader privacy into the digital era. Currently, Google Book Service can monitor the books you browse and search for, the pages you read, and even the notes you write in the "margins." Without strong privacy protections, all of your browsing and reading history may be collected, tracked, and turned over to the government or third parties without your knowledge or consent. Given the long and troubling history of government efforts to compel libraries and booksellers to turn over records about readers (PDF), Google Book Service must incorporate strong privacy protections that gives us at least as much privacy in books online as we have in our neighborhood library or bookstore. Without a strong privacy policy that protects reader privacy, Google Books could become a one-stop shop for government and third party fishing expeditions into the personal details of your life. Our letter demanded that Google, at a minimum, take the following steps to protect reader privacy. If these principles resonate with you, join us by emailing Google CEO Eric Schmidt today and demanding that Google:
Google needs to know that you and other readers will not pay for your digital books with privacy. The ACLU of Northern California is committed to working to protect user privacy in Google Books. Please join us! Three things you can do today to support reader privacy:
Tags: Google
Quiz: What Do Facebook Quizzes Know About You?(Originally posted on the ACLU of Northern California's Bytes & Pieces blog.) Ever whiled away five minutes on a Facebook quiz, finding out what cartoon character is your look-alike or how your IQ stacks up? These quizzes may seem like a perfectly harmless way to spend a few spare minutes. But have you stopped to think about what these quizzes are learning about you and how that info could be used? Take our quiz and learn more! QUESTION 1: When you take a Facebook quiz, the quiz: A. Is just for fun and doesn’t collect any info about you. ANSWER: C. This isn’t a back-of-the-magazine quiz — Facebook quizzes can collect and store the answers you give. But that’s not all: these quizzes can collect the information in your profile — and even information from your friends’ profiles — in addition to any answers you give. QUESTION 2: OK, that doesn’t sound good, but my privacy settings will protect my information, right? By default, Facebook’s privacy settings: A. Prevent any application from seeing anything on my profile unless I install and use that application. ANSWER: C. Facebook, no stranger to controversy over its policies regarding user data, does not have policies in place that reassure users that their information is automatically kept private. By default, Facebook’s privacy settings let applications access information on your profile even if you have restricted access to a specific network or friend group (as application privacy settings are separate from profile privacy settings). In addition, Facebook's default settings allow applications run by your friends to pull information from your profile. Surprised? Check out your settings and see for yourself! QUESTION 3: OK, so quizzes can collect a lot of info — but what can they do with it? The information that quizzes collect: A. Cannot be retained or used at all ANSWER: B — sort of. Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities requires that application developers limit their use of any user data that they collect. That’s nice - in theory. But in practice, it only works if quiz developers comply with this limit. If they don’t, your information could easily be abused, sold, or released without your knowledge or consent. How do you know if you can trust these developers? QUESTION 4: No worries; Facebook screens developers carefully, right? To be a Facebook developer, a person or company must: A. Pass a thorough screening by Facebook and provide Facebook with a real name, address, and telephone number. ANSWER: C. That’s right: these developers — who are able to collect all sorts of information about you and your friends — don’t have to reveal their information to you (or to Facebook) at all. That means it can be hard for Facebook to enforce these developer data use limits - or even to know if they've been violated in the first place. QUESTION 5: All right, I’ve heard enough — I want to do something about it! The best way for me to take action is to: A. Use Facebook’s privacy settings to limit the information that my friends’ quizzes and applications can see on your profile. ANSWER: ALL OF THE ABOVE. Taking control of your own privacy by using the privacy settings that Facebook offers is a good start — but it’s time to start demanding more of the companies who hold our personal information. Tell Facebook that you want better privacy protection for your personal information. Sign up for our email list and join our dotRights campaign on Facebook to learn more about what you can do to control your privacy online. And stick around as we expand our campaign to reclaim control of our personal information and Demand Our dotRights! Tags: Facebook
Facebook's Latest About-Face(Originally posted on the ACLU of Northern California's technology blog, Bytes and Pieces.) Facebook, hardly a stranger to controversy, set off yet another firestorm recently when it changed its Terms of Use. The previous terms of service explicitly stated that Facebook’s license to use user-created content expired as soon as the user deleted the content or cancelled her account: You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content. The new terms, however, removed this sentence, suggesting that Facebook retained a license to user-created or uploaded content forever, whatever the user might do. This small change triggered a storm of outrage, eventually leading Facebook to reverse course and withdraw the new Terms of Use.
Permanent License? Facebook presented the change as a simple attempt to clarify the previous terms with no practical implications on its treatment of data. Moreover, privacy settings would still “trump” anything else even according to the new Terms of Use. Still, these changes could have had long-term implications, granting Facebook a permanent license to share your content with anyone who could see it when it was last visible, even if you later decided to delete it or cancelled your Facebook account entirely. Even if Facebook didn’t actually abuse that potential, the possibility of future abuse would still exist. And while, as Facebook said, you would still “own” the content, at some point the difference between ownership and eternal irrevocable rights become rather blurry. Ultimately, the issue with Facebook’s new terms was one of control. The old terms made it clear that, as between Facebook and a user, the user was the one who retained official control over her own content, and could delete it any time she chose. The new terms turned that understanding on its head: Facebook, not the user, was asserting the right to keep information even after the user “deleted” it. Users Speak, Facebook Listens But this story has a happy ending: in response to complaints by Facebook users, Facebook has withdrawn its new Terms of Use and reinstated the old version. The reinstated Terms aren’t just a victory for Facebook users; they are a victory by Facebook users. If users work together, voices will be heard, and companies and lawmakers will respond. So keep working. If you are a Facebook user, join the "Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities" Group and tell Facebook that you want control over your information. Push other companies to give you the same rights. Tell lawmakers that online privacy is important to you. And keep working with us to update privacy law and practices so that they aren’t left behind as technology evolves. Tags: Facebook
How Private is Private Browsing?'Tis the season for private browsing, or so it seems. Apple's Safari Web browser led the pack in introducing a "private browsing mode" in 2005; in recent months, the other browsers on the market have finally followed suit, with Google's recently-released Chrome and beta versions of Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer adding similar features. What does "private browsing" mean, however? For the most part, these "private" modes are designed to protect your privacy only vis-a-vis other users of the same computer, whether you're at an Internet cafe or just trying to avoid letting your partner know what you're doing with their laptop (which earned these features the moniker "Porn Mode"). But do these "private" modes prevent Web sites from identifying you and tracking your actions? If so, how, and how effectively? Private Browsing and Shared Computers All of the browsers above offer features designed to protect your privacy vis-a-vis other users of the same computer — preventing others at an Internet cafe, library, or even your home from knowing which Web sites you visited or what information you provided. The mechanism in each browser differs, but the basic concept is the same: none of the sites you visit or the information you provide will be stored in your browser's history or cache, and any cookies that are generated will be deleted when you close the browser. It's worth noting, however, that private modes offer only partial protection. Certain browser extensions, notably the Flash animation player, generate their own cookies when they are activated — and these cookies are outside of the browser's control. Thus, while a typical user may not be able to retrace your steps, a sophisticated user may be able to do so. Private Browsing and Internet Sites Of course, other users of the same computer are far from the only ones who might be interested in your online activities. Web sites and other Internet actors also track behavior for a wide range of purposes. Does private browsing keep their prying eyes away? One way that Web sites track users is through the use of cookies. All of the new web browsers promise to discard any cookies accumulated while you surf in private mode — but what about the cookies that you've already collected before using private mode? Private mode in new versions of Firefox and Chrome both start "from scratch," ignoring any cookies you may have collected while browsing normally. IE and Safari, however, continues to share any cookies you collected before entering In Private mode. In addition, sites can use scripts to gather information about Web users. Third-party scripts, which are often used for advertising purposes, pose a particular threat to user privacy, as they allow a single entity to track your behavior across a wide range of Web sites. The only browser to address this situation is the next version of Internet Explorer, which has a feature called "In Private Blocking" that will block scripts that it will block "third-party content that appears with a high frequency across sites you visit." IE users will also be able to subscribe to lists of scripts to block, providing an alternate method of identifying and addressing privacy threats. However, none of these private browsing modes is capable of making your browsing completely "private" by preventing any site from recording your information. Your browser, and your computer, simply don't have that level of control. Web sites can still track you by using your IP address, they can still send and receive cookies within the context of the private browsing session (and many Web sites won't work at all without cookies), and they can still gather, store, and use data that you generate even while browsing "privately." Having a privacy setting on your browser is nice; having a privacy setting for the Web sites you use would be far better. Private Browsing and User Control We shouldn't have to "hide" our data from Web sites if we want to remain private; we should simply be able to tell them "don't record this session" and expect our request to be honored. While private browsing modes that use technical measures to protect personal information add value, they only take us so far. Getting Web sites and online businesses to respect our right to control our own personal information is the only way to truly browse privately. There's a long road to get there, however, and in the meantime, privacy-enhancing techniques like those seen in some of the new browsers are a welcome feature. We hope you'll take the time to tell Apple, the developers behind Chrome, Microsoft, Mozilla, and other software developers to keep up the good work. And, of course,we hope you'll continue to support our efforts to upgrade the laws to reflect modern technology, so that "private mode" is the default setting on the Internet. |
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