Facebook Delivers on Its Promise, And Yet… | TechTree.com

Facebook Delivers on Its Promise, And Yet…

The ability to manage data shared by third-party websites and apps has been around since 2018 but who has the time?

 

In the face of continued criticism of its data privacy norms, Facebook has brought its “Off-Facebook Activity” tool for all users worldwide so that they can manage and delete data shared by third-party websites and apps. However, there is a catch – users need to put in the hard yards if they want their private lives remaining private.

Seems like a good deal? Let’s go through the company’s statement and its ramifications before making up our minds. Not that it matters too much to Facebook about which way our minds are made up as the likelihood of them changing their business model just because you care for your privacy equals infinity multiplied by zero!

First things first. What’s this new tool all about? It was first introduced in 2018 at Facebook’s annual developer conference and launched in select geographies last year. Mark Zuckerberg had announced that the company would launch a privacy feature that allow users to see and delete data that Facebook has collected from website and apps.

This was at the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Nothing happened for a year and then came the announcement that the tool would be available in select geographies. Quoting Facebook official David Baser, TechCrunch had reported that “disconnecting your off-Facebook activity will have the immediate effect of logging you out of any website or app where you used your Facebook login.

Now, Zuckerberg has taken to his company’s newsroom page to reassure us that as promised Facebook was releasing this tool to the rest of the world because “One of our main goals for the next decade is to build much stronger privacy protections for everyone on Facebook” and what better day to time its release than on Data Privacy Day.

The tool which was launched as “Clear History” back in 2018 is now called “Off Facebook Activity” because that’s what it precisely does. It doesn’t clear everything that one has ever shared with the social media platform. It merely pulls the plug on data shared by other apps to Facebook though what one has shared in the past is retained on the servers.

Zuckerberg says over the next two weeks, over two billion users worldwide will get a prompt asking them to review their privacy settings, leading to a Privacy Checkup tool through which one can tune who sees our posts, turn on login alerts and review the data that is getting shared with the apps where one has used Facebook to login.

By doing so, what do we get? Facebook admits that “Other businesses send us information about your activity on their sites and we use that information to show you ads that are relevant to you.” Now, users can see a summary of that information and clear it from their account if they so desire.

Earlier this month, the company had rolled out Login Notifications which alert users when they use the Facebook login to sign into third-party apps so that one is aware of one’s account is being used and to promptly take remedial measures through editing the settings. All good! The problem is that once again Facebook expects users to take all the trouble.

Today’s communication from Zuckerberg conveniently leaves out the important bit whether this process needs to be repeated as many times as one logs into apps using Facebook and whether clearing the cache also clears it from the servers or does it remains firmly ensconced for use at some other period of time.

Which brings us to real issue, which is about apps (including Facebook) collecting data and brokering it to make money.  Would these changes really alter the business model of a company that thrives on selling targeted ads and making money.

So, all of this looks like Facebook is creating a workaround to ensure compliance on the data privacy front which puts the onus of one’s data on those sharing it as much as it rests with those who have taken ownership through means that are sometimes honest and mostly deceitful.

As Sarah Perez says in her TechCrunch article, “The clear history button doesn’t stop the third-parties from future data-sharing – that’s a whole different section…. It warns you that clearing history will log out of dozens of apps and won’t prevent you from seeing ads…”

So, once again it is much ado about nothing – in league with most of Zuckerberg’s statements! In case you want to know more, click right here.


TAGS: Facebook, Privacy, Mark Zuckerberg, Third-party Apps, Settings

 
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