It took long enough for Facebook to finally pay for all the ways they mistreat their users.
The Federal Trade Commission slapped Facebook with a sentence of 20-years of privacy audits requiring the social networking site to get user approval before sharing their information. This news came after two years of investigation by the FTC for Facebook’s “unfair and deceptive business practices.”
It’s not a new phenomenon that Facebook seems to change itself on a weekly basis. The social networking site is simply trying to squash the competition.
However, through the years Facebook has made many mistakes in the privacy department, doing a very poor job in respecting its users’ privacy. Now, the company is finally paying for their wrongdoings.
I remember many times being frustrated with the way Facebook has told us one thing, but had done another.
Back in December 2009, Facebook didn’t warn us that information we had designated as private — like our Friends List — would be made public.
Facebook also said that after users deleted their accounts, all their photos and information would be taken down. However, this information could still be found.
Lastly, Facebook said that it wouldn’t share our personal information with advertisers, but it did. Facebook taunted us with this last lie; posting advertisements for different things that related to the information we shared.
There are still a handful more of privacy issues than the ones I listed above and the FTC wants Facebook to address all of them or face paying a $16,000 fine for each violation. However, these fines Facebook is facing will only be a slap on the wrist to the multi-billion dollar company.
Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, did show some remorse for the way he and his company had handled privacy on their website in the past. Zuckerberg said in a blog post, “Overall, I think we have a good history of providing transparency and control over who can see your information. That said, I’m the first to admit that we’ve made a bunch of mistakes.”
I’m glad that Facebook is finally owning up to their mistakes, but an apology and watching them pay some fines is not going to be enough to sway the public trust in the company. Facebook will win over its users trust once the privacy issues start being cleared up, something that may take a few days or weeks depending on how serious Facebook takes this sentencing.
It will be interesting to see how Facebook fixes all its mistakes and sees the public’s reactions to these changes. I’m predicting at first we will all be upset — as we our with every Facebook update — but as we soon realize this is a move that Facebook made to boost our privacy, I’m sure we will all be satisfied.
Chasen Doerr is a senior journalism student and contributing writer for the Daily 49er.
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