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Facebook Ireland Facing Audit Over Privacy, ‘Shadow Profiles’

Irish data protection officials confirmed Friday that they will conduct a “comprehensive audit” of Facebook’s Ireland operations amidst complaints about the amount of deleted data stored by the social network, among other things.

The audit, which will begin before the end of the month, will “assess Facebook’s compliance with the requirements of the Irish Data Protection Acts as they apply to its users outside of the U.S. and Canada,” Ciara M. O’Sullivan, a spokeswoman from Ireland’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, said in a statement.

Part of the audit will involve visits to Facebook’s Dublin offices, which O’Sullivan said will “take a number of days.” Officials expect to be done by year’s end.

“Facebook is cooperating fully with the audit and we would anticipate that it will implement any necessary changes to comply with any requirements identified,” she said.

The issue is making headlines thanks to a 24-year-old Austrian law student, Max Schrems, who asked Facebook to turn over the data it had stored about his Facebook activity and was shocked to find just how much information that included. Since issues concerning Facebook users outside of the U.S. and Canada are handled by Facebook’s Dublin office, Schrems filed a variety of complaints with Irish officials, asking them to investigate.

In an August letter to Schrems, Assistant Data Protection Commissioner Tony Delaney said the commissioner “will investigate your complaints using his full legal power if necessary.” On Friday, O’Sullivan said her office had already planned an audit of Facebook Ireland prior to Schrems’ complaint, but his concerns “will also be assessed on the audit.”

In June, amidst the controversy over Facebook facial-recognition technology, Ireland’s data protection commission said it was “in contact with Facebook” over the tagging feature because it “needs to be examined for compliance with Irish data protection requirements.”

According to The Guardian, Facebook could face fines of up to €100,000 ($139,000) for violations of data protection laws.

Facebook Creating Shadow Profiles?

Schrems’ complaint is chronicled via europe-v-facebook.org (which, ironically, has its own Facebook page). According to The Guardian, the effort started in June after Schrems attended a lecture by a Facebook exec at California’s Santa Clara University. He asked that Facebook hand over all the data that it had on him, as is permitted by EU data laws, and the company responded by sending him a CD with the information.

Schrems was apparently shocked by all the data Facebook stored—from all the people he had “poked” and instances of untagged photos to deleted posts and chat logs. He decided to file 22 separate complaints with Irish officials.

Among those complaints is one accusing Facebook of creating “shadow profiles” with the data imported from various outside services, like mobile phones, email contact lists, instant messaging services, invites to friends not on Facebook, and more.

“Facebook Ireland is gathering excessive amounts of information about data subjects without notice or consent by the data subject. In many cases, these information might be embarrassing or intimidating for the data subject,” the complaint said. “This information might also constitute sensitive data such as political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and so forth.”

He told The Guardian that some of the data could be rather damning if Facebook were hit by a security breach and the info was revealed. “I’m not saying there was anything criminal or forbidden there, but let’s just say that, as someone wanting to work in law, there was stuff which could make it pretty impossible for me to get a job,” he said.

In a statement, Facebook said “the allegations are false.”

“For example, we enable you to send emails to your friends, inviting them to join Facebook. We keep the invitees’ email address and name to let you know when they join the service. This practice is common among almost all services that involve invitations—
from document sharing to event planning—and the assertion that Facebook is doing some sort of nefarious profiling is wrong,” the company said. “In addition, Facebook offers more control than other services by enabling people to delete their email address from Facebook or to opt-out of receiving invites.”

Deleted From Facebook? Think Again

The issue of Facebook and deleted data last popped up in February 2009 after an update to the social network’s terms prompted confusion over how Facebook handles people’s information.

In a blog post, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook comments made outside of your profile or messages sent to other members will live on even if you delete your profile.

“When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox,” he wrote at the time. “Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message.”

“We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like e-mail work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Facebook reiterated this stance on Friday. “As part of offering people messaging services, we enable people to delete messages they receive from their inbox and messages they send from their sent folder. However, people can’t delete a message they send from the recipient’s inbox or a message you receive from the sender’s sent folder. This is the way every message service ever invented works. We think it’s also consistent with people’s expectations. We look forward to making these and other clarifications to the Irish DPA.”

In 2008, meanwhile, Facebook took some heat for keeping copies of deleted member profiles on their servers. Facebook then updated its privacy policy to say that it keeps data from “deactivated” accounts for those who wish to rejoin the site at a later date. Those who want their information entirely wiped from the site must go one step further and request that Facebook permanently delete their profiles.

After deletion, “some information may remain in backup copies and logs for up to 90 days,” Facebook says on its privacy policy. “You should only delete your account if you are sure you never want to reactivate it.”

The Next MySpace: Facebook???

A shiny new social-networking site comes along and before you know it, we're all flirting with the frisky startup, leaving our dates back at the table to pay the check. At least, that's how it seems with Google+, the latest competition for our Facebook affections.

In just a few weeks, Google+ has enticed roughly 20 million people to join, according to Comscore. And that's before it's even officially debuted; you still have to be invited to go to this dance. Furthermore, while the service is still in pre-release mode, many of us using it have found it to already be simpler, slicker, and generally better at the social-networking waltz than Facebook (and it always lets you lead).

  

Uber-venture capitalist Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners recently argued that the social network war was over."The last 500 social companies funded by the venture capital community are all worthless," McNamee said during a presentation to a crowd of media types. As far as McNamee is concerned, the social platform has been established, and it's Facebook. He may be right. He has nearly 30 years experience investing in tech, including an early bet on Facebook. And Facebook, according to the company's own tally, has 750 million members.

Plenty of people have offered excellent reasons for abandoning Facebook, however. Some of my FB friends have already switched because changing networks is as simple as a mouse click, and there's no exit cost whatsoever -- indeed there may be several benefits.Many FB friends, for example, would rather switch than fight Facebook's ever-evolving privacy settings. Purposively convoluted, Facebook's pages of inscrutably marked multiple boxes have made it about as friendly as Windows Millennium Edition. So one day your chat line is closed, the next you're open online for everyone to see. It's created Facebook fatigue.

Then there's the grandma factor: If everyone is on Facebook, not only is it no longer cool but it also means I can't say anything without fear of retribution -- or being outed for playing beer pong by my boss or mom. That's no fun at all, and Google+ at least makes it easier to compartmentalize friends, acquaintances, and business associates (unlike Facebook's lists, which are a pain in the you-know-what). Some Google+ members are even creating "frenemy" circles (now there's an idea that's bound to get you in trouble).

There are two other important undercurrents to the rising tide boosting Google+: momentum and the nature of social circles.
The first issue looks ominous for Facebook when one looks back at the fall of MySpace. The switch from MySpace to Facebook seemed predicated on a number of factors. There was the shear clutter of MySpace, which looked like something out of an early GeoCities blog. It became a blinking, flashing, honking mess. And Facebook connected people and conversations more seamlessly. Perhaps more critical was the shear momentum of Facebook as it picked up speed, sucking in more and more friends until it became an irresistible social vortex. Now, Google+ looks poised to possibly do the same to Facebook, draining away members and eyeballs.

The second point is a lesson about social behavior. Switching from one network to another may just be an inevitable part of our social habits. Every once in a while, we simply need a change. No one can eat the same meal every day, and we can't visit the same bar or coffee shop every day without getting bored. Some folks have been on Facebook for nearly 7 years; that's a long time to be hanging out at the same watering hole. And what is it they say about the 7-year itch?So switching social circles may be preordained. And Google+ is simply the next hot hangout.

source: foxnews

Facebook's Secret iPad App Leaked Pics

TechCrunch's MG Siegler found the app to be quite good even in its non-public release form:

The app also makes great use of the pop-overs (overlay menus) found in other iPad apps. When you flip the iPad horizontally, the list of your online friends appears and you can chat with them as you do other things on Facebook. The photo-viewer aspect looks great — similar to the iPad’s own native Photos app. Places exists with a nice big map to show you all your friends around you. Etc.

Facebook is said to be launching this native app shortly. Facebook's own native iPhone app has been consistently in the top Free apps on Apple's App Store. The company has not yet released an iPad version of their app, though the demand has been clear as 3rd party Facebook apps such as MyPad have consistently ranked in the iPad bestsellers since the iPad's launch. 

Flo's Weblog has posted instructions on how to modify the Facebook app so you can play with this early iPad release yourself. TechCrunch has posted an extensive gallery of screenshots from Facebook's long anticipated native iPad app. It turns out the latest update to Facebook's native iPhone application also included the code and resources for the iPad app. 

Facebook hires PS3 hacker Geohot

Facebook has hired George Hotz, the young programmer whose hacking of the PlayStation 3 allegedly led to crippling attacks on Sony’s network.Mr Hotz, 21 and also known online as “Geohot”, is not a hacker in the sense of illegally accessing private data, rather he is known for circumventing software controls on consumer hardware.He first found fame in 2007 when he broke restrictions on Apple’s iPhone to allow it to work on any mobile network. And last year he gained further attention for “jailbreaking” the PlayStation 3 to allow it to run unauthorised software.

The act angered Sony, which sued Mr Hotz in January after he published details of the process online. The case was settled out of court, but Sony had stirred a hornet’s nest of hackers who supported Geohot.
Anonymous, the online “hacktivist” collective, targeted it with Denial of Service attacks, which the firm told the US Congress led to the theft of 77 million PlayStation network users’ personal details. The network was subsequently shut down for six weeks to improve security.Sony said the hackers also left a calling card implicating Anonymous, but people claiming to speak for Anonymous have denied responsibility for network intrusion.

Facebook has not commented on what Mr Hotz will work on.At the firm’s Palo Alto HQ posters celebrate the positive connotations of hacking and developers are encouraged to experiment and tinker with software.

Winklevoss twins end appeal of Facebook settlement

Olympic rowing twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court a ruling upholding their $65 million settlement with Facebook Inc and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, signaling the possible end of the long-running dispute.

The 2008 accord was intended to resolve a feud over whether Zuckerberg stole the idea for what became the world's most popular social networking website from the Winklevosses, who like him had attended Harvard University. Their battle was dramatized in the 2010 film "The Social Network."

 

After agreeing to the cash-and-stock accord, the Winklevosses sought to undo it, saying it was fraudulent because Facebook hid information from them, and that they deserved more money.The 6-foot 5-inch (1.96-meter) twins, who competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, had been planning to appeal an April 11 ruling by a federal appeals court in San Francisco upholding the settlement, which that court called "quite favorable."

But in a filing on Wednesday with that court, the Winklevosses said that after "careful consideration," they decided not to seek Supreme Court review. The filing did not give a reason for the decision.Zuckerberg created Facebook in 2004 in his Harvard University dormitory room.The California case had been brought by ConnectU Inc, which the Winklevosses set up with another Harvard student, Divya Narendra, who joined in Wednesday's filing.

Facebook, in a statement, said: "We've considered this case closed for a long time, and we're pleased to see the other party now agrees."Jerome Falk, a lawyer for the Winklevosses and Narendra, did not immediately return requests for a comment.Wednesday's filing clears the way for Facebook to seek the dismissal of a related lawsuit filed in Boston federal court.

Analysts have estimated that Palo Alto, California-based Facebook could be worth $70 billion or more should it conduct an initial public offering, perhaps in early 2012.Facebook could be worth more than $100 billion in an IPO, CNBC television estimated last week.
The case is Facebook Inc et al v. ConnectU Inc et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 08-16745.

Facebook App for iPad Coming Soon-third party apps to lose out

Social networking giant Facebook is finalizing its new app that will run on Apple's iPad, according to New York Times.Facebook, which released its official app for iPhone immediately after the launch of Apple's App store in 2008, has not come with an app for the tablet device - iPad, which was released in April 2010.

The No.1 social networking site has been reportedly working on a free iPad app for more than a year and is in the final stages of testing, the New York Times reported citing sources familiar with the plans.

Currently, people have been resorting to third-party apps such as My Pad, iFace and Friendly for accessing Facebook on tablet devices, while many of the third party apps are currently operating in a risky space as the release of official Facebook app for iPad could curb traffic to their apps.If Facebook releases its official app for iPad then iPad owners would prefer the consistent experience of an official Facebook app rather than third-party apps.

In terms of usage, Oecoway’s Friendly for iPad is the front runner among the third-party apps, which is having around 600,000 daily active users and ranked 59th in the top free iPad apps in the last month.It is speculated that the upcoming Facebook application will address several issues from critics, who were saying that Facebook's web interface is not optimized for tablets such as iPad or any other touch screen interface.

According to those who have seen the app, it has a "slick design that has been tailored for the iPad and its touchscreen interface". Insider sources says the app enables users read and post on Facebook, participate in Facebook chats, as well as upload photos and video.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, is said to have invested heavily in the project and personally supervising the development apart from fine tuning the unique and advanced features of the app. Designers of the app are also working hard to make the user experience compelling and sticky.The company is also working on the site to improve the compatibility of the website with iPad.

Why Facebook Is Losing U.S. Users?

                          

News hit the other day that Facebook may have lost about six million users in the U.S. in one month, according to Inside Facebook, a site that analyzes the social network for developers and marketers. Facebook has close to 700 million users worldwide, so a loss of six million doesn't sound like much, especially in light of data that suggests the service has been pushing aside regional social sites to conquer large swaths of the developing world, and actually posted a net increase in overall users over the same period.

But a six million user loss is a little more painful when compared to the U.S. user base, which reports say stands around 150 million—or roughly half the population of the country. It's not crippling, but a four percent reduction isn't negligible either. At the same time, the same data source suggests the service is experiencing similar losses throughout the Western world in places like Canada, the U.K., and Norway. Could American audiences finally be turning on the social network?

When asked about the report, a Facebook spokesman told that, "From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook. We are very pleased with our growth."
Facebook itself may not put a lot of stock in the numbers, but it tellingly didn't offer any of its own. Absent official statistics, industry observers tend to believe the report.
"I think the data to be correct." says Lou Kerner, a social media analyst with Wedbush Securities, a Los Angeles-based investment bank. "As Facebook starts to get near 50 percent penetration in a lot of these countries, the growth starts to slow. A little bit of fatigue sets in. Older people who sign up don't get as much value as younger people do, so they tend not to stick around. They come and they go."
So assuming the data is correct, why is Facebook losing U.S. customers? There are a few possible explanations:
1. Seasonal Changes
One of the simplest explanations for the change is that it's just a normal blip in Facebook's seasonal cycle. Every spring, many college students graduate, and while their Facebook profiles don't get deleted, their Internet habits can change rapidly, especially when suddenly faced with the prospect of selling themselves to potential employers. Inside Facebook notes that "short-term factors" like this may be obscuring overall trends.
"May starts the seasonally slow period for social networks," says Kerner. "Kids have finals and leave school, so they get out of their social networking routine."
2. The Privacy Envelope Has Been Pushed Too Far
This is the favorite go-to theory for pundits, since everybody likes to talk about privacy when Facebook makes headlines. It makes sense on paper: Facebook makes some change or introduces a service that appears to make the site less private or secure, everybody makes a big deal about it, and Facebook (typically) goes ahead and does it anyway. Then everyone starts to theorize when users will begin leaving en masse in defiance.
The theory overlooks the inconvenient fact that through all of Facebook's privacy shenanigans (and there have been many), its user base has grown massively, and the most recent hullabaloo over the site's new facial-recognition abilities is small potatoes compared to controversies of the past. To suggest that the Facebook finally hit the last straw on privacy over the last month assumes users just started caring about the issue.
"I don't think this is a Facebook problem as much as it's a privacy on the Internet problem," says Kerner. "I think more than driving people away, it's stopping people from coming."
3. Facebook's Time Has Come
It's probably inevitable: Somehow, someday, Facebook will start to decline, just like its predecessors MySpace and Friendster. Its users will slowly lose interest, moving on to other networks and platforms (possibly Twitter, or whatever emerges from Apple's iCloud). It seems impossible given Facebook's colossal user base and rapid growth, but it would be far from the first complacent empire that fell.
The problem with the theory is that it completely ignores another, more important statistic: user engagement. According to Alexa, people visiting Facebook are actually visiting 40 percent more pages per visit than they were just three months ago. That's not the picture of a disinterested populace ready to pack its bags for the 140-character wilds of Twitter.
"Facebook's page views per user have continued to grow very rapidly on a global basis," says Kerner. "Before you see an decline in users, you see a decline in engagement. Unique users don't become highly engaged and drop off—they use it less and less and then drop off."
So Facebook's users are spending more time on the site than ever, though the overall number of users may be declining slightly, at least in North America and few other places. Still, when your market penetration is as deep as Facebook's, it's going to be difficult to avoid the occasional downward arrow.
Kerner admits, "Facebook isn't for everybody." That's certainly true, though it's just as certain that everybody has at least heard of it. Even if the company launched an all-out marketing campaign tomorrow to try and recruit new users to make up for those who left, I suspect it would have little effect. The people who want to be on Facebook are there, and those who aren't probably never will be (or never should have been).
As for the six million users who left in the last month, they're probably similarly divided: some are just taking a break and will be back, while the others probably weren't the sharing type in the first place. That's not something the social network would like, but if there were a "Live With It" button, it's an easy click.

source:PCMag

Facebook Losing US,Canada & UK Users

The number of people using Facebook has dropped in the UK for the second month in a row, mirroring similar falls in the US, Canada and Norway, giving the first signs that the social network's popularity may be waning in the west.

The website continued to grow worldwide, hitting an all-time high of 687 million users, according to data from the tracking company Inside Facebook, which uses Facebook's own advertising tools to determine the number of people using the site every month. Growth slowed however, having risen by 13.9m accounts in April and then just 11.8m in May. Typically in the past year it has grown by 20m a month. That slowdown could thwart founder Mark Zuckerberg's ambition to reach 1 billion users worldwide, despite his prediction last June that "it is almost a guarantee that it will happen".

Growth in Facebook use seems to peak in any country once the site is used by roughly half of those who have internet connections – though with more than 2 billion people online worldwide, the site could still reach the 1 billion figure. However, it would need people who have joined the site to stay with it – and that hasn't been happening in some countries.

Magnus Hoglund, chief executive of the law media portal Law360.com, who has worked on digital media companies for the past decade, said: "From my experience, I get the sense that being on Facebook is not cool anymore. The early adopters and trend setters are moving away. [But] these are also exactly the type of people brand advertisers want to reach; if they are leaving, it doesn't look good for Facebook."

The site has been criticised in the west for its approach to users' privacy, with repeated protests about the way in which controls on data access are relaxed. Last week the revelation that it had extended an automatic facial recognition system for tagging photos beyond the US without asking people if they wanted to opt in drew criticism from privacy groups and security consultants.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said: "We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day."

The drop in use was most marked in the US, where numbers fell from May's 155.2 million, just under half the 239m people online, to 149.4 million at the start of June. It marked the first time in a year that the number of people logging into the site over a month had fallen. In the UK, the fall was smaller at around 100,000 users to 29.8 million, or 58% of the 51.4 million people online. Canada saw a fall of 1.62 million to 16.6 million, while Norway also saw a fall of around 100,000 users over the month.

The fastest-growing countries, including Brazil and Mexico, grew at a maximum of 10% over the month.
The fall in users is most marked in those developed countries where Facebook first launched to the public in September 2006, after its first two years when it catered only to US college and high school users.

Eric Eldon, one of the researchers at Inside Facebook, said that it was hard to see how the social networking site could hit its 1 billion target except by getting into China, which has 420 million internet users but just 391,000 Facebook users as of March. The site has been banned in China since 2008, while cloned versions abound inside the country. Zuckerberg visited China in December 2010, which led to speculation that he was working on a way to get the site approved by the government, but there has been no further detail on whether that is happening.

Facebook still dominates the world in terms of social network use, with Russia and China marking the biggest holdouts where home-grown networks are the most popular.Hoglund added that following the stock market flotation of LinkedIn, Yandex and Groupon's plans to go public, this summer could mark the high-water mark for media and technology market offerings as firms rush to cash in before their capital runs out.

Meanwhile, reports in the US suggest that Facebook may have to make a public share offering at the beginning of 2012 because it will have more than 500 shareholders. US securities exchange commission rules oblige companies to make a listing once they passed this threshold. Facebook did not respond to the Guardian on the issue.

source:guardian.co.uk

Mark Zuckerberg wants Facebook's minimum age limit to go!

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants kids younger than 13 years on Facebook. Speaking at NewSchools Summit in the US, Zuckerberg said that younger children should be allowed on the site for education purposes.

According to a news report on Fortune, the Facebook CEO said that in the future, software and technology will enable people to learn a lot from their fellow students. Presently, Facebook allows only people aged 13 and above to sign up for the site. However, it is quite esay to get around this as Consumer Reports recently reported that there are approximately 7.5 million underage kids on Facebook.

However, Zuckerberg seems determined to change this. "That will be a fight we take on at some point," he said according to Fortune. He said that his philosophy is that for education one needs to start at a really, really young age. He pointed out that due to restrictions we haven't even begun this learning process. According to
the article, he says that if allowed, Facebook will ensure that kids are safe on Facebook. "If they're lifted then we'd start to learn what works. We'd take a lot of precautions to make sure that they (younger kids) are safe," he reportedly said.

Interestingly, Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor recently appeared before US Congress, where he was grilled about underage kids on the site. In March in a statement, Facebook said that it removes about 20,000 profiles from the site per day for a variety of policy violations, including spam, inappropriate content and underage use.