Abstract
The present paper examines privacy settings in Social Networking Sites (SNS) and their default state from the legal point of view. The analysis will be conducted on the example of Facebook as one of the most popular –and controversial- SNS and one of the most active providers constantly amending its privacy settings. The paper will first present the notion of privacy settings and will explain how they can contribute to protecting the privacy of the user. Further on, this paper will discuss the general concerns expressed by users and data protection authorities worldwide with regard to the changes of Facebook’s privacy settings introduced in February 2010. Focus will be put on the implementation of the fairness principle in SNS. This principle implies that a person is not unduly pressured into supplying his data to a data controller, and on the other hand that the processing of personal data is transparent for the data subject.
Part of the research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 216483 (PrimeLife) and n° 248726 (+Spaces). The information in this document is provided "as is", and no guarantee or warranty is given that the information is fit for any particular purpose. The above referenced consortium members shall have no liability for damages of any kind including without limitation direct, special, indirect, or consequential damages that may result from the use of these materials subject to any liability which is mandatory due to applicable law.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Canadian Woman Loses Benefits over Facebook photo, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=9147300
Privacy chiefs keep watch over Facebook, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L0UB20100422
Facebook’s Zukerberg Says the Age of Privacy is Over, ReadWriteWeb, January 9 (2010), http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php
Peterson, C.: Losing face: an environmental analysis of privacy on Facebook, draft paper (January 2010), http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=cpeterson
Leenes, R.E.: Context is everything: sociality and privacy in Online Social Network Sites. In: Bezzi, M., Duquenoy, P., Fischer-Hübner, S., Hansen, M., Zhang, G. (eds.) Privacy and Identity. IFIP AICT, vol. 320, pp. 48–65. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
Goffman, E.: The presentation of self in everyday life. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1956)
Facebook Statistics, http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=drop#!/press/info.php?statistics
www.lamebook.com (last checked on 01.07.2010)
Stross, R.: When Everyone’s a Friend, Is Anything Private?, N.Y. TIMES, March 7 (2009), http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/business/08digi.html
Sophos ID Probe Shows 41% of Users Happy to Reveal All to Potential Identity Thieves, SOPHOS, August 14 (2007), http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2007/08/facebook.html
As referred by EPIC in the complaint submitted to the FTC on the matter of Facebook, INC, May 5, 2010: Pew Internet and American Life Project, Teens, Privacy, and Online Social Network, http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Teens-Privacy-and-Online-Social-Networks.aspx?r=1 , Pew Internet and American Life Project, Social Networks Grow: Friending Mom and Dad, January 14 (2009), http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1079/social-networks-grow
Nelson, S., Simek, J., Foltin, J.: The Legal implications of Social Networking. 22 Regent U. L. Rev. (2009)
Goldberg, S.: Young job-seekers hide their Facebook pages, CNN Tech, March 29 (2010), http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/29/facebook.job-seekers/index.html
Hong, J., Iachello, G.: End-User Privacy in Human–Computer Interaction. Foundations And Trends In Human–Computer Interaction 1(1) (2007)
Nissenbaum, H.: Privacy as contextual integrity. 79 Wash. L. Rev., 119 (2004)
Grimmelmann, J.: Saving Facebook. 94 Iowa L. Rev., 1185 (2009)
Acquisti, A., Gross, R.: Imagined Communities: Awareness, Information Sharing, and Privacy on the Facebook. In: Danezis, G., Golle, P. (eds.) Privacy-Enhancing Tech.: 6Th Int’L Workshop, vol. 36 (2006), http://privacy.cs.cmu.edu/dataprivacy/projects/facebook/facebook2.pdf
Livingstone, S.: Taking Risky opportunities in youthful content creation: teenagers’ use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy ad self-expression. New Media and Society 10 (2008)
The Facebook Privacy Fiasco Begins, TechCrunch, December 9 (2009), http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/09/facebook-privacy/
Facebook’s New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 9 (2009), http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly
Privacy groups file FTC complaint against Facebook, Guardian, December 17 (2009), http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/dec/17/facebook-privacy-ftc-complaint
Ten Privacy Groups File FTC Complaint Against Facebook for Recent Privacy Changes, Inside Facebook, December 17 (2009), http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/12/17/ten-privacy-groups-file-ftc-complaint-against-facebook-for-recent-privacy-changes/
Paul, I.: Facebook privacy complaint: a complete breakdown, PC World, May 6 (2010), http://www.pcworld.com/article/195756/facebook_privacy_complaint_a_complete_breakdown.html
Hachman, M.: Facebook targeted by new FTC privacy complaint, PCmag, May 7 (2010), http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363518,00.asp
Kafka, P.: Feds to Facebook privacy critics: let’s talk, All Things Digital, January 19 (2010), http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100119/feds-to-facebook-privacy-critics-lets-talk/
For the full text of the complaint see, http://epic.org/privacy/facebook/EPIC_FTC_FB_Complaint.pdf
Paul, I.: Facebook’s new features and your privacy: what you need to know, PC World, April 23 (2010), http://www.pcworld.com/article/194866-3/facebooks_new_features_and_your_privacy_what_you_need_to_know.html
McCarthy, C.: press release, Facebook’s privacy policies hit a language barrier, CNET News.com on July 12 (2010), http://www.zdnetasia.com/facebook-s-privacy-policies-hit-a-language-barrier-62201276.htm
Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24.10.1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (Data Protection Directive) (OJ L 281, 23.11.1995)
Rosen, J.: The Web Mean the End of Forgetting, New York Times, July 19 (2010), http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25privacy-t2.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&hp
Bygrave, L.A.: Data Protection Law, Approaching its rationale, logic and limits (2002)
Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/social_networking/docs/sn_principles.pdf
Art. 29 Data Protection Working Party, Opinion 5/2009 on online social networking, WP 163, adopted on 12 June (2009)
EU to slam new Facebook privacy settings: http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-slam-new-facebook-privacy-settings
EU Watchdog slams Facebook’s privacy settings, http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-watchdog-slams-facebook-privacy-settings-news-494168
Letter of Art. 29 Wp to Facebook, http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/others/2010_05_12_letter_art29wp_facebook_en.pdf
Vanelsas, A.: The Facebook business model is the root cause of a lack of transparency, February 18 (2009), http://vanelsas.wordpress.com/2009/02/18/the-facebook-business-model-is-the-root-cause-of-a-lack-of-transparency/
Edwards, Brown, I.: Data Control and Social Networking: Irreconcilable Ideas? In: Matwyshyn, A. (ed.) Harboring Data: Information Security, Law and the Corporation, vol. 226 (2009)
Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 11, 2005, concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) (2005)
Report of Findings into the Complaint Filed by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) against Facebook Inc. Under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, http://www.priv.gc.ca/cf-dc/2009/2009_008_0716_e.cfm
Gross, G., McMillan, R.: Canada ends Facebook privacy probe, Computerworld, September 22 (2010), http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9187381/Canada_ends_Facebook_privacy_probe?source=CTWNLE_nlt_security_2010-09-23
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing
About this paper
Cite this paper
Kuczerawy, A., Coudert, F. (2011). Privacy Settings in Social Networking Sites: Is It Fair?. In: Fischer-Hübner, S., Duquenoy, P., Hansen, M., Leenes, R., Zhang, G. (eds) Privacy and Identity Management for Life. Privacy and Identity 2010. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 352. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20769-3_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20769-3_19
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-20768-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-20769-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)