Facebook develops new policy

March 10, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

SAN JOSE, Calif.

Facebook is rewriting its privacy policy in plain-spoken English, and preparing new tools to show users how their personal data is used.

“We’re really an innovative, cutting-edge company on a lot of different fronts, and I think we feel like, ‘Why can’t we be innovators in privacy as well?,’” Michael Richter, Facebook’s chief privacy counsel, said in an interview this week. “The company cares about privacy.”

Nevertheless, some critics say Facebook still is not telling consumers enough about what it knows about them, and about how the social network and its business partners use that information. The Federal Trade Commission and some members of Congress are prodding the Palo Alto, Calif., social network about privacy practices like the company’s recent decision to let third-party developers access the telephone numbers of users who allow it.

Facebook’s intent to simplify its privacy disclosures, and to create interactive software tools to allow users to see how Facebook and application developers access their data, has drawn praise from some privacy advocates. But, “until Facebook tells its 600 million members what it tells its major advertisers and marketing partners — on how to configure its system to generate data and other desired ad responses — it is failing to protect user privacy,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “We intend to push the FTC and Congress to force Facebook to come clean about its data privacy practices.”

Compared to the existing 5,900-word privacy statement, the proposed new policy is easier to read and full of graphics that illustrate how Facebook works. (Users can view and comment on the proposal at http://www.facebook.com/about/privacy.) Though privacy advocates say the intent is good, few are convinced the more plain-spoken policy will keep many people informed about their privacy choices.

Ryan Calo, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society, says a privacy policy cannot be both succinct and thorough. “I am completely skeptical of privacy policies as a way to inform users,” he said. “Nobody reads them.”

Calo said, however, he is more excited about interactive tools Facebook is proposing that would allow users to do things like build their own ad on Facebook, to demonstrate that the social network does not share an individual’s data with advertisers targeting a specific demographic.

For example, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who used the Facebook interactive tool to design an ad that would target Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 interested in reading newspaper stories about Mark Zuckerberg found the ad would target about 360,000 women and 290,000 men. There was no way to access the names of users, however, or where those people live.

Meanwhile, movie rentals are coming to Facebook. Warner Bros. says it is testing a service that will offer select movies for purchase or rental through the public pages of these movies on Facebook.

Starting Tuesday, Facebook users who visit the official page of “Batman: The Dark Knight” can click a “watch” icon and pay 30 Facebook credits, or $3, to watch the movie. The movie is streamed through a Facebook application.

Renters have access to a movie for 48 hours and can replay it as many times as they like. Warner Bros. said it will add other movies in coming months but did not say what those would be.

The page had nearly 4 million “likes” as of Tuesday afternoon.