Do Facebook Privacy Concerns Really Require Government Regulation?
It has been a long week for Facebook.
Fifteen consumer privacy groups just filed a new complaint (PDF) with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) claiming the social networking site has dropped the ball in protecting user privacy. Meanwhile, other groups like the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) cautioned that ongoing legislative efforts to protect privacy on the Internet may go too far.
The tension regarding user privacy on the Web is thick enough to cut with a knife, and it is an open question as to how the government should react. About eight to ten years ago, similar privacy and data sharing issues came up in the banking industry, noted Gartner analyst Avivah Litan. It wasn’t until an act of Congress that consumers by default had to opt into having their providers share information on them, she said.
