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Complaint Against Facebook Filed at FTC!

While we simply went ahead and updated our privacy settings when Facebook prompted us to do so, an electronic privacy group did not take these changes in stride and filed a federal complaint against Facebook on Thursday.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) complained to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the recent changes that were made by Facebook to the privacy options of their users, and asked the FTC to conduct an investigation. There were criticisms hurled against Facebook for the changes that were rolled out early this month as they resulted in the sharing of personal details that had been previously set as private to the general public.

The complaint of EPIC includes a statement that says: “These changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations”.

Facebook countered, however, that they have already spoken with regulators as well as the FTC regarding the changes that were made. In as much as certain information was suddenly made public – unless of course you immediately were able to change the pre-set settings – the changes also provided users with more specified means of controlling access to certain information in one’s account.

The information in question includes gender, cities and profile pictures, which have allegedly been made “publicly accessible without an option”.

This is not exactly the first skirmish involving EPIC and Facebook. In February, EPIC also brought forth a federal complaint against Facebook that would have provided the latter with “eternal ownership of user data”, which would have stretched over to the time when the user has decided to delete the account.

EPIC reportedly did not get far with this one, though, because when they announced that they intended to follow through on the case, Facebook agreed to changing its terms of use back and to give its users the right to have input on future changes.