Facebook is looking down the barrel of a potential class action lawsuit due to some privacy concerns. Here’s what the BBC had to say about it:
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, cites independent research that, it claims, found Facebook reviews the contents of its users’ private messages “for purposes unrelated to the facilitation of message transmission”.
“Representing to users that the content of Facebook messages is “private” creates an especially profitable opportunity for Facebook,” it says.
It says this is “because users who believe they are communicating on a service free from surveillance are likely to reveal facts about themselves that they would not reveal had they known the content was being monitored.
“Thus, Facebook has positioned itself to acquire pieces of the users’ profiles that are likely unavailable to other data aggregators.”
Oh lovely, here’s another reason for me not to have a Facebook account. Assuming that this is true of course seeing as this hasn’t been proven in court. But there are those who defend Facebook:
Writing on his blog, security expert Graham Cluley said that if the site was not examining links shared privately, Facebook would be failing a “duty of care” to its users.
“If you didn’t properly scan and check links there’s a very real risk that spam, scams, phishing attacks, and malicious URLs designed to infect recipients’ computers with malware could run rife,” he argued.
At this point it’s not clear if that’s what Facebook is doing, or if they are doing something less than honorable. We’ll just have to wait for this to get to court to find out as Facebook has said that these charges are “without merit” which means they’ll be defending themselves.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
This entry was posted on January 3, 2014 at 8:35 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Facebook, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Facebook Sued Over Privacy Concerns
Facebook is looking down the barrel of a potential class action lawsuit due to some privacy concerns. Here’s what the BBC had to say about it:
The lawsuit, filed earlier this week, cites independent research that, it claims, found Facebook reviews the contents of its users’ private messages “for purposes unrelated to the facilitation of message transmission”.
“Representing to users that the content of Facebook messages is “private” creates an especially profitable opportunity for Facebook,” it says.
It says this is “because users who believe they are communicating on a service free from surveillance are likely to reveal facts about themselves that they would not reveal had they known the content was being monitored.
“Thus, Facebook has positioned itself to acquire pieces of the users’ profiles that are likely unavailable to other data aggregators.”
Oh lovely, here’s another reason for me not to have a Facebook account. Assuming that this is true of course seeing as this hasn’t been proven in court. But there are those who defend Facebook:
Writing on his blog, security expert Graham Cluley said that if the site was not examining links shared privately, Facebook would be failing a “duty of care” to its users.
“If you didn’t properly scan and check links there’s a very real risk that spam, scams, phishing attacks, and malicious URLs designed to infect recipients’ computers with malware could run rife,” he argued.
At this point it’s not clear if that’s what Facebook is doing, or if they are doing something less than honorable. We’ll just have to wait for this to get to court to find out as Facebook has said that these charges are “without merit” which means they’ll be defending themselves.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on January 3, 2014 at 8:35 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Facebook, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.