The Federal Trade Commission is looking into the latest set of privacy policy updates that Facebook proposed in late August. The agency claims that it is a routine monitoring, and that no official investigation has been launched, though what the difference between ‘monitoring’ and an ‘official investigation’ is not mentioned.
These changes have not yet gone into effect, but they’ve drawn scrutiny from a variety of different privacy groups who are concerned about how the social giant will be using its member’s personal information and even photos in advertisements. Six of these privacy groups have sent a letter to the FTC claiming that the revisions to their policy violate the 2011 settlement Facebook made with the FCT. In this settlement, Facebook agreed to get explicit approval from users before changing its privacy controls, and also to submit their privacy policy practices to the agency every other year for the next 20 years.
The updates to the privacy policy aren’t a radical move away from their existing policy, and simply update the language which more accurately describes what the company is already doing. This was ordered by a federal judge in San Francisco as part of a separate settlement in late August. In this settlement they were also ordered to pay $20 Million.
Facebook spokeswomen Jodi Seth said in an email statement, “Importantly, our updated policies do not grant Facebook any additional rights to use consumer information in advertising, rather, the new policies further clarify and explain our existing practices. We take these issues very seriously and are confident that our policies are fully compliant with our agreement with the FTC.”
Facebook investors don’t seem concerned that this will cause any issues, driving the Facebook stock to its highest level ever of $45.62 on Thursday, September 12th, before it dropped back to $44.75 at the closing bell.
