Facebook privacy for Canadians

As a follow up to my last two posts regarding targeting options available through the Facebook ads platform, Jennifer Stoddard, Canada’s privacy commissioner, recently stated that Facebook doesn’t meet Canadian privacy law standards. The complaint raised is focused on the default privacy settings of a Facebook account, the collection and use of data for advertising purposes, and the disclosure of personal information to 3rd party developers.

Personally, it’s the information available to the 3rd party developers that worries me. In most cases, we’re openly providing the data to Facebook. I don’t mind that my birthday is posted, and I don’t mind if an advertiser targets me on my birthday. If I did mind, well then I shouldn’t give Facebook my birthday details, should I? That’s a choice I made when signing up to Facebook. For the early adopters, the Facebook applications that run rampant now never existed. At the end of the day, Facebook shouldn’t ever be a burden to it’s users. If it’s too hard to delete an account, that’s a problem. If privacy settings are too complicated or buried, that’s a problem. In my opinion, a Facebook account should be locked down by default. But if that had been the case since the beginning, would Facebook be as successful as it is today?

As far as the privacy commissioner’srequest – Facebook was given 1 month to comply with recommendations. That deadline was on August 17th, and itworldcanada.com reports that discussions between Facebook and Canada are going well. Right now the Stoddard has Facebook’s reponse in hand, and has 15 days to review and reply. I’d like to get my hands on both of these documents…