TRUSTe to Certify Facebook’s Privacy Policies
Social network Facebook, still recovering from the November launch of a controversial policy for tracking users’ off-site behavior, has partnered with privacy certification company TRUSTe on disclosure language for that program.
TRUSTe will provide continuous review of Facebook’s policies on disclosures and information control and certify that the social network is delivering on its published commitments in those areas.
The tracking program, named Beacon, is part of what Facebook calls its Social Ads initiative. It tracks purchases that Facebook members make on third-party Web sites such as Overstock.com, Blockbuster.com and Fandango.com. The information is then pushed to the members’ Facebook friends as an alert.
The Beacon program quickly raised an outcry among Facebook members soon after its rollout. Advocacy organization MoveOn.org got about 70,000 signatures to a petition protesting the lack of a viable opt-out mechanism. In response, a Dec. 5 post to the blog of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said that Beacon would be modified into an opt-in program, and that members would also have the choice of a universal opt-out for all Beacon features. TRUSTe said Friday that it took part in revising those elements of Beacon during the last month.
“New technologies bring forth privacy challenges and sensitivities,” TRUSTe communications vice president Carolyn Hodge said in a statement. “TRUSTe’s role will be to work with Facebook, providing guidelines for ensuring that privacy obligations are clearly communicated and user controls are consistent with our requirements.”
Since shortly after beacon’s debut, Zuckerberg has apologized to Facebook’s more than 58 million active members for failing to walk the line between disclosure and control of their own information. However, he has defended the notion that members would benefit from a system that shared their outside buying decisions.
“We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot of information people want to share isn’t on Facebook, and if we found the right balance, Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends,” Zuckerberg wrote in his Dec. 5 post.
