14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Facebook is looking to do some spring cleaning and is tweaking the language of its privacy policy, yet again. And, yet again, some changes are a bit worrying as Facebooks seems determined to make you forgo any sort of online privacy you'd expect. There are plenty of changes and small tweaks but a couple of big ones have most people talking about, notably enabling third-party sites to access your Facebook data without your expressed consent. Hints of an upcoming location feature, though, have many excited.
"Nearly a year ago, we committed to an open and transparent system of governance for Facebook. Specifically, we now post all proposed changes to our governing documents before they go into effect and solicit feedback on these proposals from the people who use Facebook," Michael Richter, Facebook's deputy general counsel, wrote.
"[T]oday, we explain some of these policy changes, and sometime soon - when we're done designing and coding - we'll have more product details to announce," he said.
"It is important to note that, while we're still developing many aspects of these products, user control over privacy remains essential to our innovation process and we'll continue to develop new tools to help you control the things you share on Facebook," Richter added.
First up, the troubling part. The social network says that it may allow a small group of "pre-approved" sites to access your public Facebook data when you visit them even if you don't employ the Facebook Connect integration on those sites. The sites would be able to see your friends lists and any info you share publicly and use them to display customized content or cater to your particular likes.
The functionality is enabled by default but you will be able to block individual sites from accessing your info or disable the feature altogether. This may not be as bad as it seems but, in essence, it makes Facebook Connect an opt-out tool rather than an opt-in one.
On a lighter note, Facebook is also adding the necessary language for an upcoming location feature, which could be coming at its f8 developers conference next month. The social network already has some location references in the existing privacy policy but has now clarified some ideas. The new privacy policy introduced the "place" concept that is somewhat similar to the Google Place Pages idea. A place could be a Facebook page or a local shop and it looks like the social network is working on some sort of 'check in' functionality in the sense that is provided by location apps/games like Foursquare and Gowala. The full changes to the privacy policy can be reviewed here.