After EU court ruling Belgian users now have to log in to Facebook

Facebook users now have to log in to view the publicly available data on it's servers after the ruling by the European Court discussing the matter.

After privacy ruling, Facebook now requires Belgium users to log in to view pages - The Verge 

The ruling comes after the European Court observed in November that the company has undermined the privacy rules of the European Union which are more stringent than in the US.

 Facebook bows to Belgium privacy ruling over cookies. 

In the US, Facebook doesn't need the prior permission to place a tracking cookie in the User's system, but in European Union you now need to log in to view any Facebook pages, even for locally available business sites.

In October European Court invalidated 15 year-old agreement with the US companies validating the data transfer related to the information of EU residents to US.

Landmark EU ruling says US privacy protections inadequate - The Verge 

Facebook in response replied that it's cookie is only meant to prevent the network being used by Fake accounts, to prevent Hijacking and prevent online thefts. After the verdict Facebook said it will respond to the ruling.

This decision could affect 4500 U.S.companies that move and store, collected customer data in the US.


 Valleyz

Discussing Internet Privacy Issues

Now we will look at some of the web links related with Internet Privacy issues .

This paper by a suffolk University researcher Morris A. Singer  notes in particular the privacy issues involved in Social Networking sphere. You can take a look at it   

http://suffolkmedialaw.com/2010/05/20/how-privacy-limits-utility-using-facebook-as-a-case-study/

Below is an excerpt from that paper.

"On April 27, 2010, U.S. Sens. Al Franken, Charles Schumer, Michael Bennet, and Mark Begich wrote a letter to Facebook, urging the social networking company to change their privacy settings modifications from opt-out to opt-in. In a statement accompanying the letter, Sen. Schumer said:


Millions of New Yorkers use social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter every day with an expectation that their private information is shared only with those they choose to connect with . . . . [I]t’s vitally important that safeguards are in place that provide users with control over their personal information to ensure they don’t receive unwanted solicitations and other nuisances, and that they are not automatically gathered into online groups without their consent."

Science Daily had some of the reports below running  last year, discussing issues related with Privacy, How Facebook and other  Social Networking sites pose concerns for a user, where the user signs away his rights to the online entity.

You can read about the Science Daily  report discussing this particular issue.

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091013162746.htm

Another Science daily  report discussing a research at Worcester Polytechnic Institute,  how practices of many social networking websites make available a User's browsing information with the tracking websites.

You can read this report

 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090824151307.htm

Recently there were many privacy issues reported in the media, when it was noted that Engineers at the web giant Google were detected to have copied or collected a huge volume of private data illegally, while surveying the streets in European cites, for the Google's Street View application.

Read related BBC story

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8684110.stm

Google has been since in damage control mode and  made clear that it has already purged or are on the way to purge complete data collected illegally, and then recently Google tightened up it's employee privacy policy when dealing with Customer data. Read related Yahoo report here.

There's no reason to doubt the steps taken by Google in this direction, but the concern will remain high with How much user data changed hands or the content duplicated. Though these issues are still unfolding, and it will take time till the user's swarming the Social sphere can comprehend about what exactly is been done with their virtual identity, that's increasingly revealing more and more information about a User. And a fact that it no longer gives a User an identity, which used to seem so anonymous online a couple of years ago.

You can take a look at the Privacy Policy of the facebook

 http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

You can  take a look about the latest privacy features introduced by facebook recently  

http://www.pcworld.com/article/194866/facebooks_new_features_and_your_privacy_what_you_need_to_know.html
 
How do you think that your Privacy might be affected online ?
Do you think it is OK for tracking websites to scan your data from Social Networking sites with which a User actually signs a Privacy and Terms contract ?
When did you felt that your Online Privacy has been violated ?
Are you satisfied with Privacy Policy of all the online majors in the Social Networking realm ?


For Further Reading :

Internet Security and Privacy at stake