The feature that I find most unsettling, however, is the connection which Facebook now has to applications such as Rdio, a streaming music service which already served as a type of social network: you can have friends and followers, and share your listening habits in a closed off network. Rdio is a tiny service compared to Facebook, but was already connected with it, and had the ability to share a song with the click of a button whenever you wished.
Privacy advocates have already criticized Facebook for the latest changes, and have cautioned users to be aware of how the new site will share information. As Hayley Tsukayama reported:
Video
Facebook has taken the wraps off upcoming features at the social media platform, including the ability to include audio content from Spotify and video content from Netflix. (Sept. 22)
Users and privacy advocates have reservations about Facebook’s planned redesign, the way the change will affect third-party apps and the network’s general approach to privacy.
Third-party apps will be fully integrated into a user’s profile page, with updates about activity on each app. That means that users won’t actively click to share updates from apps — the apps will add that information to a user’s page automatically.
With this change, users will have to think more carefully about what apps they use, since their private media consumption, exercise routines and other habits could be automatically published on their profiles.
On Sunday, self-proclaimed hacker Nik Cubrilovic accused Facebook of using cookies to track users while they are logged off, something Facebook engineer Gregg Stefancik denied in a comment on Cubrilovic’s post. Stefancik confirmed that Facebook alters rather than deletes cookies when users log out as a safety measure, but said the company does not use those cookies to track users or sell personal information to third parties. He also said that the company does not use cookies to suggest friends to other users.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that the organization is opposed to changes made to the Timeline, Facebook’s newly designed profile page. Acting as a sort of digital scrapbook, the Timeline now shows all the information a user has put on Facebook in chronological order. The new format changes rules about how information is accessed, Rotenberg said, adding that the problem is that this has happened after the company has already acquired user data. EPIC is preparing a letter to the Federal Trade Commission about the changes, he said. The organization has led the charge calling for the agency to look into Facebook’s privacy policies.
More technology coverage from The Post
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