F.T.C. Said to Be Near Facebook Privacy Deal

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GaplekNews--Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission are nearing a settlement over deceptive practices related to several Facebook features, including its privacy settings, according to two people briefed on the settlement.

Under the agreement, Facebook would agree to privacy audits for 20 years, one of the people said. It would also prohibit Facebook from making public a piece of information that a user had originally shared privately on the site without express permission, the person said. The individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because the F.T.C. commissioners have not yet approved the settlement.

But Facebook would not be required to ask users if they would like to participate in all sharing features on the site, including tools that it builds in the future.

A Facebook spokesman, Andrew Noyes, and an F.T.C. spokeswoman, Claudia Farrell, declined to comment. The settlement is part of the F.T.C.’s effort to protect consumer privacy online.

In March, Google and the F.T.C. agreed to 20 years of privacy audits and other measures after an investigation into deceptive privacy practices related to Buzz, its ill-fated social networking tool. It was the first time the F.T.C. had charged a company with such violations and imposed such regulations. Last year, after an F.T.C. investigation into two security breaches, Twitter agreed to establish a privacy program.

For Facebook, which has said it has voluntarily made its privacy settings simpler in the last 18 months, the settlement is occurring as it tries to smooth the path toward an initial public offering.

“This is part of the balancing act Facebook has to do,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “It also needs to settle the privacy complaints in the United States and Europe before its I.P.O.”

But Mr. Chester expressed doubts that the settlement would appease critics of Facebook’s data-collection practices.

“The real test of the F.T.C.’s Facebook deal will be whether a user actually has control over their own information, or will this be a tiny digital bump on the road that does nothing to derail Mark Zuckerberg’s voracious appetite to swallow up our data,” he said.

Users, privacy specialists and politicians have attacked Facebook for automatically signing people up for new features on the site, instead of asking them first.

For a year and a half, the F.T.C. has pushed Facebook to offer granular privacy controls so people can choose to share or make private specific information they post on the site, according to a person involved in the talks.

Facebook has since added tools, like one for sharing with small groups of Facebook friends.

The settlement addresses several complaints that the F.T.C. has received from organizations like the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

It focuses on privacy changes that Facebook made in December 2009. Although the company said at the time that the changes would simplify settings users found confusing, they exposed information that could previously be made private, including profile photos, gender, friend lists and current city. Facebook also removed the ability to opt out of some features.

After a public outcry, Facebook in May 2010 limited the amount of information users were required to make public, and restored the ability to opt out of certain tools.

The settlement also addresses other Facebook features that the F.T.C. said were deceptive, including a program for giving applications from outside programmers the Facebook seal of approval that ended in December 2009, one of the people said.

Several people briefed on the settlement, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, said it was unclear how long it would take to complete the deal. nytimes