Facebook and FTC are close to a privacy settlement

PEOPLE DATABASE Facebook is close to a settlement with the US government over privacy complaints.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the privacy shredding Facebook is close to settling with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over complaints that it misled its users about what it did with their personal information, which is a tune that we know well.

Under the terms of the settlement Facebook would have to obtain each member's consent before making any "material retroactive changes" to its privacy policies that affect them. This means that Facebook would have to ask its users for their consent before sharing their data in new and inventive ways.

Sources close to the matter told the WSJ that under the terms of the agreement Facebook would have to submit to regular, independent privacy audits. It is reckoned that these audits could be a fact of its life for the next 20 years.

The complaints can be traced back to 2009 when Facebook made changes that were supposed to make it easier for its users to manage their privacy settings. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook's definition of 'privacy' did not seem to tally with that of at least some of its members.

However, Facebook has made some compromises towards respecting individual privacy since 2009. µ