In a statement issued yesterday, the officials accuse Facebook of giving itself the right to 'comprehensive tracking of registered and un-registered users.'įacebook added the words 'and non-users who interact with Facebook' to a provision in the terms of service that say users consent to having personal data transferred to and processed in the U.S., and other conditions. German officials are complaining that Facebook isn't doing enough to provide users control over their data and is instead giving users more duties and less rights. Schnitt insists that no changes are being made to Facebook's privacy policy and the clarifications 'do not change one thing about how your data is used.'

If you're not comfortable with that, you can use your app settings to control what friends can share about you, block individual apps, or you can turn off the platform altogether.'īut Sarah Downey, privacy analyst and attorney at online privacy company Abine, said with the changes Facebook is acknowledging that its focus is on collecting user data. 'Apps need data from friends to develop these social experiences and that is the whole purpose for our platform. 'Facebook is a social Web site and so is our platform,' he said. A section of the proposed changes to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for users. This has been the case for about five years and is explained in the privacy policy, but wording was added to the terms of service to clarify, according to Schnitt. For example, the document now specifies that a user's data is shared with the apps that friends use. The document also has other wording changes, but they do not outline any meaningful modifications to the company's practices.

'We're just making the Terms consistent.' Specifically, the revised document says that the 'Privacy Policy' is now called 'Data Use Policy,' wording that was changed in the company's actual privacy guidelines more than a year ago, spokesman Barry Schnitt told CNET.

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