Two privacy groups are challenging Facebook on its proposed changes to its site governance.
The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) and the Centre for Digital Democracy have submitted a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to withdraw the proposed changes and be "responsive to the rights of Facebook users to control their personal information and to participate in the governance of Facebook".
Last week, Facebook sent an e-mail to its more than one billion users, informing them of the social network's intention to share user data across its affiliates (such as Instagram), loosen the restrictions on the internal e-mail system, and do away with its user voting system.
Facebook is providing a seven-day window for public comments on the proposed changes. The current system requires that there should be over 7 000 comments on a proposed change for a user vote to be triggered. At the time of writing, there were already over 18 000 comments. Voting is expected to begin on Thursday, 29 November.
Previous votes have lasted seven days. In order for the outcome of the vote to be binding, at least 30% of Facebook users must take part. This minimum participation requirement has not been reached in the previous two public votes that have taken place on the site.
Facebook's VP of communications, public policy and marketing, Elliot Schrage, says: "In the past, your substantive feedback has led to changes to the proposals we made. However, we found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivised the quantity of comments over their quality. Therefore, we're proposing to end the voting component of the process in favour of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement."
Facebook is proposing that it will continue to post significant changes to its Data Use Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and will provide a seven-day period for review and comment.
In their letter to Zuckerberg, EPIC and the Centre for Digital Democracy say: "Although Facebook's existing voting mechanism set an unreasonably high participation threshold, scrapping the mechanism altogether raises questions about Facebook's willingness to take seriously the participation of Facebook users."
The letter also raises concerns about Facebook potentially combining user information from across its affiliates like Instagram, creating unified profiles and freely sharing user data across the sites.
"Facebook's proposed changes implicate the user privacy and the terms of a recent settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The settlement prohibits Facebook from misrepresenting the extent to which it maintains the privacy or security of covered information.
"Additionally, prior to any sharing of users' personal information with a third party, Facebook must make a clear and prominent disclosure and obtain the affirmative express consent of its users," says the letter.
On the issue of loosening the restrictions on the internal e-mail system, the privacy advocates state: "By removing users' ability to prevent strangers from sending unwanted messages, the proposed changes are likely to increase the amount of spam that users receive. Facilitating spam violates users' privacy and security, as many Facebook scams are accomplished through the messaging feature."
Facebook has not commented on the letter from the privacy groups. The company's chief privacy officer of policy, Erin Egan, is expected to host a live Web cast on the social network once the comment period is over in order to respond to the specific concerns raised by users.
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