Facebook Opens Voting On Privacy Policy Changes

After 2009 once again Facebook is allowing users to vote on the changes to its privacy policy. Last time it happened in 2009 when Facebook had userbase of 200 million only. The voting concerns are Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR) and Data Use Policy and it has already started!

The changes that are up for a vote include:

—- Updated language clarifying that Facebook can use users’ data to serve advertisements outside of Facebook’s Website.

—- Addition of a chart which should show users exactly how Facebook uses cookies.

—- Updated language for better explanation of why Facebook retains user data.

In order to get these changes applied 30 percent of all active Facebook users must approve them which make about 230 million votes. In case if these numbers of users do not happen to vote changes will be considered as “under advisory.”

Click here to vote for changes.

This voting is Facebook’s response to the audit that Irish data-protection authorities have done last year. In fact, the whole hype started last year when the Irish data protection authorities started working on it in order to respond to a campaign, dubbed Europe v. Facebook. The campaign was originated by 24 years old Austrian law student Max Schrems who filed bundles of complaints about Facebook’s privacy practices in Europe last year. He held the point that Facebook privacy policy is not according to the European data protection law.

Facebook tried to handle the situation with “Download Your Information” feature, which allowed users to download a greater chunk of personal data, including their friend request history, IP addresses from where they accessed Facebook, changes to account status, and variety of other information. But Schrem kept on doing his efforts, he told The New York Times that he’s still not satisfied with the privacy policies and the update is still not meeting the European data protection law.

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