Facebook has moved to placate Canada's Privacy Commissioner, amending some policies and answering complaints about the availability of its users' personal information.
The social networking site was preparing yesterday to file its response to the commissioner's finding last month that it violates Canada's privacy law. Facebook had a deadline of yesterday to comply with the commissioner's recommendations.
Tamir Israel, staff lawyer at the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which made the initial complaint, expected Facebook to file a legal undertaking binding it to implement its proposals over a given timeline.
Whether Facebook's plan meets the commissioner's standards is unknown; the response is under wraps, and the commissioner will take up to two weeks to review it.
“We will make the outcomes of our discussions public,” said Anne-Marie Hayden, spokeswoman for the privacy watchdog.
In the past month, commission staff visited Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters to get in-person demonstrations of the site's technology.
“There's been a fair bit of negotiation behind the scenes,” said privacy lawyer David Fraser.
At greatest issue are the Facebook tools such as SuperPoke, FarmVille and Causes that allow users to play games with each other, or rally each other around a political position.
These programs, created by outside software developers, are key to Facebook and its revenue model because they “increase engagement among users, and keep them coming back,” where they can be exposed to advertising, said Gartner Inc. analyst Ray Valdes.
But the commissioner ruled last month that developers were getting more access to users' personal data than was necessary, in contravention of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and that Facebook should “implement technological measures to restrict application developers' access only to the user information essential to run a specific application.”
Most users don't differentiate between Facebook and the developers who run programs on the site, Mr. Fraser said.
Last week, Facebook made “clarifying changes and minor updates” to the site's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Several changes address developers and operators of third-party applications and websites.
For example, the statement, addressing developers, initially read “you will only use the data you receive for your application, and will only use it in connection with Facebook.”
The amended statement reads, “You will only request data you need to operate your application.”
Another proposed revision requires each developer to have its own privacy policy, or state how it will use, display, or share user data.
In a blog posting, Facebook said the new statement is still just a proposal, and has asked for feedback from site users until Tuesday.
The proposed changes have received little notice in the developer community, said Mr. Valdes. It is also unclear whether Facebook would be able to verify whether third-party developers were complying with the new guidelines.
