False Promises in Online Privacy Policies

Senior staff attorney Chris Jay Hoofnagle commented on Facebook’s “social advertising” plan. A New York Times article, “Facebook Is Marketing Your Brand Preferences (With Your Permission),” discusses how Facebook, a social networking site, is displaying user profile pictures with commercial messages. A Facebook user can rate or recommend a product and then an ad for that product will be sent to the user’s friends. However, this new plan comes with growing privacy concerns that advertisers may have access to too much information regarding user activities. Although Facebook currently allows users to choose whether or not to make product recommendations, it may later change this policy. Hoofnagle comments: “That’s been one of the historical problems in this field – the shifting promises.”

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