Facebook is out with many changes of late and users are feeling the change, except in case of privacy concerns. The social networking giant is facing regulatory scrutiny in Ireland, which is the site of its European headquarters. On Friday, the Financial Times reported that the reason for the same was related to its handling of personal information.
The newspaper noted that the Irish data protection commissioner would conduct a privacy audit of the social networking site’s activities outside the United States and Canada. This step was planned after noting complaints by European and U.S privacy campaigning groups to the Irish commissioner and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
A number of concerns were raised by the said groups. These include concerns over Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” of reading, listening and viewing activity as well as the use of cookies to track users’ browsing.
FT reported that the Irish deputy data protection commissioner, Gary Davis, noted that a detailed audit would be conducted, which relate to Facebook’s activities outside the United States and Canada. However, it would be conducted in the next month.
Davis said that basically it would examine the complaint’s subject matter, but at the same time, they would even be more extensive. They would seek to examine the group’s compliance, relating it to the requirements posted by the Irish data protection law.
Talking about Facebook, its European headquarters are in Dublin, which looks after their operations at places outside the United States and Canada. However, it is subject to Irish and European data protection legislation. From their side, Facebook was unavailable for immediate comment.
The accusing groups have notified their concerns related to tracking of Internet users after they log off from Facebook. The concerns were there since quite some time, but after Ticker and Timeline features coming into play, privacy risks got a boost as the features combine biographical information in an easily accessible format. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and nine other groups, in a letter filed with the FTC yesterday. Additionally, the said new features of Facebook are even being questioned by the concerned groups.
In a telephone interview, David Jacobs, consumer protection fellow for EPIC, said, “We would like the FTC to investigate the extent to which Facebook’s recent changes and its secret tracking of users after they have logged out constitute unfair or deceptive business practice.”
Facebook on its part has been working on getting users sticked to the social networking site by adopting different ways, may it be by offering video and music services or making users use Facebook to share music, movies, television shows, news and activities such as cooking and exercising.
Briefing about the problem, Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic, had written that Facebook placed so-called “cookies” on users’ browsers that tracked their Internet activity even after they logged out of Facebook.
Jacobs noted that Facebook has moved a step ahead to resolve the said issue, it is still unclear as to how would the social networking giant fix the issue completely.
A FTC spokesperson, Claudia Bourne Farrell, confirmed that the letter was received by the agency, but however, she declined to comment further.