Blood in the social media waters

It would appear that Chuck Shumer smells blood in the water and sees a way to boost his flagging political career by shining a spotlight on Facebook…

“Facebook is feeling some political heat for its moves last week, after launching a program that “instantly personalizes” websites for visitors by automatically sharing user data with the site owner.

Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote a letter to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg asking him and the company to revisit their decision on the program and move to an “opt in” default rather than an “opt out” one.

Facebook first mentioned the “instant personalization” program in a privacy policy released for public comment last month. After receiving hundreds of user comments (but not the level of outrage it saw when it unveiled the news feed four years ago), it approved the policy. While the program doesn’t share a user’s entire profile, it has ability to pass on information including a user’s name, their friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, connections, and content shared under the “Everyone” privacy setting. Although the company had planned to unveil the program with a wider number of partners, it ultimately winnowed the number to just three, with Microsoft, Pandora and Yelp.” Source: Sen. Chuck Schumer’s letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook privacy | VentureBeat

While I’m not happy about Facebook’s recent moves but I’m horrified at the thought of eejits like Shumer interfering with the flow of information on the internet!