We can be assured, each morning, that we will read something new about our vanishing online privacy. Today’s entry: “Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole.” I’m sure your first question was “What’s MySpace?” (We kid! We kid!) Your second question depends on whether you are naturally cynical, jaded and annoying (like so many of us in the legal profession), or whether you are the type of person who still believes in the tooth fairy.
No, there is no option 3.
For the cynical, your next question was probably something along the lines of “this is a surprise?” Many folks simply believe the worst of all online services, and presume that they are nefariously seeking to monetize every last drop of your personal identity. The more trusting of you probably wondered “how could this happen? The privacy policy was clear! Did they lie?”
The truth can be found in a description of what was actually happening here. To quote The Wall Street Journal’s big scoop:
Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers’ names and other personal details, despite promises they don’t share such information without consent.
Did you catch the important word in that paragraph? It was the word “could.” This was not a situation where Facebook was out there selling your name on a streetcorner for three nickels and a dime. Instead, as part of the standard practice of online advertising, referral information was sent to advertisers in connection with click-throughs on the site. In a typical scenario, however, the referral information does not include anything identifiable about the individual clicking on the ad. In the case of many social media sites, however, the referral addresses included “user names.” This could permit advertisers to track the names to public profiles, and thus to other information about the individual. In some cases, these user names were also the real names of the consumers.
Obviously, this is a problem — it may, in fact, be literally in contradiction of the privacy policies used on these sites. But it was also notpart of the larger effort of Facebook to mine as much information about its users as possible through the magic of personalisation. So, should these sites be worried anyway? They obviously were worried enough to change their practices on a moment’s notice after the Journalpressed their story, but is there larger significance to this story (part 327 of our national privacy freakout)?
Yes.
The bigger point, for everyone else, is that privacy policies are more than window dressing — they actually have meaning, and there are legal repercussions when they are wrong. As I have mentioned before, the critical thing about any privacy policy is that it must accurately describewhat you may do with the information you obtain from users. Heck if you intend to use the information gleaned from site visitations to steal the immortal souls of your customers, that’s generally fine as long as you disclose it. Therefore, you must regularly consider what your privacy policy says, and whether it actually matches up with what you’re doing. The world moves quickly, and you may not have the same web site today that you had 3 months ago. In fact, your marketing folks may, as we speak, have devised the best thing ever, which just happens to be slightly inconsistent with your privacy policy. You need to know what’s going on, and you need to make sure that it is reflected in your privacy policy. Yes, there are legal repercussions (the FTC is almost certainly going to look into the newest charges against social media sites), but even worse these type of stories can be PR nightmares, and in a rapid fire online environment your brand may not have time to recover.
So read your privacy policy. Today. Think about what you’re up to. Is it accurate? Does it need a tune up? Regular attention to your privacy policy can keep your company out of trouble, and out of the newspapers.
Jason Barrett http://SocialBusinessToday.net
(Article source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/199817 )
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