Does Facebook Own You Forever?

In a recent feature article on Facebook and the "new privacy," I stressed how the company's invasive data policy seizes lots of information from users, even after they quit the site:

Even if users terminate their membership, pictures of them posted by others remain online. But users can't really quit, anyway. Like guests at the Hotel California, people who check out of Facebook have a hard time leaving. Profiles of former members are preserved in case people want to reactivate their accounts. And all users' digital selves can outlive their creators. As the company's "terms of use" explain, profiles of deceased members are kept "active under a special memorialized status for a period of time determined by us to allow other users to post and view comments."

The issue has generally received far less media scrutiny than user revolts over programs that spread people's information, such as the "feed" controversy and protests against "social ads," though bloggers and social media observers have flagged this problem before. DavidNYC posted one of the more memorable pleas in December, "Delete My Bleeping Account, Facebook!"

Today the New York Times weighs in, with an excellent article by Maria Aspan:


Read More...

[Source: Disinfo.com - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]