10 Things You Should Know About Facebook's New Privacy Policy
May 14, 2012 4:00 PM EST By Sara Yin
Facebook
updated its privacy policy last Friday, clarifying what it does with
your data, while also blurring the limits of what it can do with your
information. Commendably, it posted the entire document with tracked
changes in red. It's a 14-page document, which I know you all have time
to read (insert SarcMarc).
If you haven't yet, we've highlighted the top 10 changes you should know:
1.
Some data is always visible: your name, profile picture, Timeline cover
photo, network, gender, and username are always visible to all Facebook
users. However only "Public" profiles (the default option) are listed
in search engines; click into Privacy Settings/Applications and
Websites/Edit Your Settings to tweak this.
2.
Careful what you write: Your messages are never deleted, not even when
you delete your account. This is because they are stored separately from
your account, since other people see your messages. They will continue
seeing messages that include you even after you've deleted your
account—standard stuff for any messaging platform, but something to be
aware of.
3. Facebook notes your "Likes" and
brands mentioned in posts: Facebook trawls your posts for brands, which
may lump you into a target category that is sold to advertisers of that
category. Facebook gave the following example: if you 'like' Pages that
are car-related and mention a particular car brand in a post, Facebook
might put you in the 'potential car buyer' category and let a car brand
target to that group, which would include you.
4.
Post no evil: Facebook may intervene if your post suggests you are
going to harm yourself or harm others. Previously, it only shared
information suggesting fraud and other illegal activity, or threats to
Facebook itself.
5. Facebook can transfer data
to others' devices: Once you've shared anything on Facebook, your
contacts can save this information on their mobile devices. Don't post
unless you're okay with a friend saving it to his or her smartphone.
6.
Ads using data: Forbes' Kashmir Hill noted two key changes to how
advertisers can use your data. First, Facebook removed the 180-day limit
it keeps data sent from advertising partners. Instead, Facebook will
retain the data for as long as it needs to serve you ads.
7.
Your Facebook data is used for ad targeting outside Facebook: Hill also
notes that Facebook has made it clearer that it uses information you
share on Facebook to serve you display ads outside Facebook.
8.
Apps keep your data even after you delete the app. ArsTechnica pointed
out that deleting an app doesn't delete the data from their servers. To
do that, you have to contact the app maker directly.
9.
California residents: You lucky folks can request what information
Facebook is sharing with third parties for direct marketing purposes.
Also, Facebook can't share your information without your explicit
permission.
10. More cookies: Facebook added
an entire microsite explaining how it's been using cookies, pixels, and
other tracking software. Facebook doesn't use cookies to create a
profile of your browsing behavior outside Facebook, but it does
anonymize this data "to improve ads generally."
Ah, the price of free.
You
can also obtain a copy of all the personal information (photos,
messages, videos, status updates) you've shared on Facebook, plus an
expanded archive with your friend requests and IP addresses you've
logged in from. I requested my file and within two hours, Facebook sent
me a download link for a 72MB file (my previous requests went ignored).
On
Monday, Facebook's chief privacy officer for policy, Erin Egan,
answered users' questions about the privacy update. Nothing new was
revealed, according to my co-worker Chloe Albanesius, but Egan gave
three reasons why the updates were made: first, to comply with a pledge
to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which has long been on
Facebook's case over its facial-recognition technology. Second, to
include new Facebook products launched since the last policy update in
September (Timeline, school groups, etc.). And third, to make everything
more transparent to users. For instance, you'll notice little light
bulb icons with tips on how you can better protect your privacy.
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