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Citing “people familiar with the talks,” the Wall Street Journal says Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are close to an accord on the issue of user privacy.
The dominant social network has come in for user criticism too many times to count due to its frequently fluctuating levels of privacy and penchant for discovering new and innovative ways to leak user data around the internet as well as to people you believed were unable to see your most hideous tagged photos within the Facebook sphere itself.
The paper says that Facebook will agree in the settlement to obtain users’ permission prior to instituting “material retroactive changes” to its privacy policy. The WSJ goes on to say that “that means that Facebook must get consent to share data in a way that is different from how the user originally agreed the data could be used.” Under the terms of the settlement, it’s said that Facebook would be subject to privacy-related audits for two decades after the agreement goes into effect. Both the FTC and Facebook declined to comment on the pending arrangement.
The investigation started back in December of 2009 when the massive social network revised the information on users’ profiles that was public by default, and was based in part on a complaint by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
