Facebook Agrees to Settle Privacy Charges with the FTC

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Social networking giant Facebook said it has agreed to settle with Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over charges that it violated federal law by telling members their information would remain private, then "repeatedly" allowing it to be made public. Among the complaints, the FTC alleged that changes to the Palo Alto-based company's privacy settings in late 2009 made information such as friends lists public without warning users or getting their approval, and that it also broke promises by sharing personal information with advertisers and third-party apps. "Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users," said Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC. "Facebook's innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy. The FTC action will ensure it will not." The proposed settlement bars Facebook from making any further deceptive privacy claims, requires that the company get consumers' approval before changing the way it shares their data and requires that it undergo independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/11/privacysettlement.shtm
https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150378701937131 (Mark Zuckerberg's response)