“The Facebook betrayal – users revolt over advertising sell-out”

Nice article in by Susie Mesure and Ian Griggs in the Independent on Sunday on responses to Facebook’s new “social advertising” direction from users and consumer advocates.  The contrast betweeen the 35,000 people in “My photos are MINE! NOT Facebook’s! Change the Terms and Conditions” and less than 600 “fans” of Coke is a nice hook (although of course it’s early days yet).  Featuring a quote from my favorite privacy advocate, Deborah Pierce: “Users should be concerned. They have no idea who has access to information about them from the site.”

This follows on the discussions at the recent FTC Town Hall, an FTC letter from Center for Digital Democracy (Jeff Chester’s quoted in the article as well) and US PIRG,  and the call for a national “do not track” list by a broad coalition of organizations including Privacy Activism, EFF, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, World Privacy Foundation, Consumer Federation of America, and CDT.  One of the articles describing the do not track list called it the “first salvo in the next privacy battle” or something like that; looks like things are heating up quickly.

jon