Facebook Makes Changes to Privacy Policy, Renames to ‘Data Use’ Policy

Facebook’s latest revisions to their privacy policy were intended to provide transparency in how the company handles user data by changing a couple of words and adding in a few new ones, but their plan didn’t exactly work out as intended.

After Facebook posted the new privacy policy–now called a “data use” policy–the company was met by a torrent of criticisms from users concerned that the changes allowed more and more third parties to have access to their data–and even the data of their friends.

One of the chief complaints users of the wildly popular social networking service is that, according to the new data use policy, apps that you’ve allowed access to some of your data will also share data that you share, meaning that the apps can access data from your friends without consent.

It admittedly sounds a bit shady, but the fact of the matter is that this policy isn’t new to Facebook at all. In fact, this same policy has been in place for roughly 5 years now, but the previous privacy policy didn’t make this clear enough–hence the recent revisions.

“Facebook is a social Web site and so is our platform,” Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt told CNET. “Apps need data from friends to develop these social experiences and that is the whole purpose for our platform. If you’re not comfortable with that bargain, you can use your app settings to control what friends can share about you, block individual apps, or you can turn off the platform altogether.”

All in all, the new data use policy doesn’t introduce any meaningful changes to the old privacy policy, but rather attempts to clarify some sections of the policy, such as the case with app data sharing. That may not take away the sting from some of you, granted, but at least you can say you’re safe from any new privacy-invading changes.

via CNET