据mercurynews报道，Facebook最近正以通俗易懂的语言改写其用户隐私政策，并准备推出一款新工具，向人们展示用户个人数据被使用的情况。

Facebook首席隐私顾问迈克尔·里克特（Michael Richter）表示，“我们是一个真正创新，并在多个不同领域都具有前沿优势的企业，所以为什么我们不能成为隐私方面的创新者呢？我们公司很重视用户的隐私问题。”

尽管如此，仍然有不少评论认为，Facebook向用户告知的实情还远远不够，它没有公布该网站获取了多少用户数据，Facebook及其商业合作伙伴对用户数据的使用情况。游戏邦获悉，美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）和一些国会议员最近正针对Facebook允许第三方开发商获取用户电话号码等信息的事件进行调查。

facebook-privacy

Facebook积极应对的态度，以及推出创新软件工具的举动（游戏邦注：该工具可让用户了解Facebook及应用开发商获取用户数据的情况），获得了一些隐私捍卫者的赞誉。但数字民主中心的常务董事Jeffrey Chester表示，“只要Facebook不向它的6亿多用户告知，它向主要的广告商和市场营销合作伙伴透露了多少用户信息，它如何通过安装系统获取这些数据，以及其他广告相关反馈内容，那么它就不是在保护用户隐私。我们准备让FTC和国会向Facebook施压，让它提高保护用户隐私措施的透明度。”

比起之前5900字的隐私政策声明，Facebook目前起草的新政策更容易为人理解，而且还添加了多个图表，详细说明了Facebook保护隐私的相关做法。

尽管有些隐私捍卫者认为Facebook在这一点上表现态度良好，但加州法律还是会要求Facebook及其他互联网公司推出明确的用户隐私政策，而且很少人认为更简洁明朗的政策条款会让用户更 了解具体情况。

斯坦福大学互联网及社会中心的用户隐私项目负责人Ryan Calo认为，隐私政策不可能兼具简明扼要而内容全面的特点，他自称对隐私政策能否发挥作用表示怀疑，因为根本没有人会去看这些内容。

不过Calo也同时表示，他还是对Facebook准备推出的互动工具很有兴趣，因为该工具支持用户自主创建在Facebook上展示的广告，而且它可以指明Facebook并没有与广告商共享特定用户的数据。

曾有一名记者使用了这项Facebook互动工具设计了一个广告，该广告的目标受众是25至34岁、对马克·扎克伯格的新闻消息感兴趣的美国人，结果发现该广告可锁定36万女性用户和29万男性用户，但并不能获取这些用户的姓名、地址等信息。

里克特表示，这些调整措施目前还处于测试阶段，但已有许多用户表示“这种方法非常有效，Facebook在这方面的工作做得很到位。”

不过，游戏邦得知美国民权同盟的隐私捍卫者Chris Conley等人仍然认为，Facebook拟推出的隐私政策仍然没有告知，该网站如何通过用户页面追踪访问其他用户的页面等详情。还有一些批评者认为，Facebook总是植入一些可能对用户数据造成影响的新功能，但却从来没有向用户通知这一点。

圣地亚哥的一名隐私权组织成员Amber Yoo表示，Facebook总是不断进行政策调整，却没有告知用户相关情况，这一点让大家很困扰。

另外需要指出的是，Facebook似乎并没有停止获取用户数据的打算。因为其拟推出的新隐私政策指出：“如果您授予了这个权限，我们不但将继续为您提供Facebook现有的服务，而且还将提供我们今后开发的创新功能和服务，它们将以新的方式使用您的信息。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，转载请注明来源：游戏邦）

Facebook develops new privacy policy

Facebook is rewriting its privacy policy in plain-spoken English, and preparing new tools to show users how their personal data is used.

“We’re really an innovative, cutting-edge company on a lot of different fronts, and I think we feel like, ‘Why can’t we be innovators in privacy as well?’ ” Michael Richter, Facebook’s chief privacy counsel, said in an interview this week. “The company cares about privacy.”

Nevertheless, some critics say Facebook is still not telling consumers enough about what it knows about them, and about how the social network and its business partners use that information. The Federal Trade Commission and some members of Congress are prodding the Palo Alto social network about privacy practices like the company’s recent decision to allow third-party developers to access the telephone numbers of users who allow it.

Facebook’s intent to simplify its privacy disclosures, and to create interactive software tools to allow users to see how Facebook and application developers access their data, has drawn praise from some privacy advocates. But “until Facebook tells its 600 million members what it tells its major advertisers and marketing partners — on how to configure its system to generate data and other desired ad responses — it is failing to protect user privacy,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “We intend to push the FTC and Congress to force Facebook to come clean about its data privacy practices.”

Compared with the existing 5,900-word privacy statement, the proposed new policy is easier to read and full of graphics that illustrate how Facebook works. (Users can view and comment on the proposal at www.facebook.com/about/privacy.)

While privacy advocates say the intent is good, and California law requires Facebook and other Internet companies to have a privacy policy, few are convinced the more plainspoken policy will keep many people informed about their privacy choices.

Ryan Calo, director of the Consumer Privacy Project at Stanford University’s Center for Internet and Society, says a privacy policy cannot be both succinct and thorough. “I am completely skeptical of privacy policies as a way to inform users,” he said. “Nobody reads them.”

Calo said, however, he is more excited about interactive tools Facebook is proposing that would allow users to do things like build their own ad on Facebook, to demonstrate that the social network does not share an individual’s data with advertisers targeting a specific demographic.

For example, a Mercury News reporter who used the Facebook interactive tool to design an ad that would target Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 interested in reading newspaper stories about Mark Zuckerberg found the ad would target about 360,000 women and 290,000 men. There was no way to access the names of users, however, or where those people live.

“We’re really looking at this at some level as an experiment,” said Richter, who added that many users “are saying that this is helpful and think we’re doing a better job of explaining things.”

Still, privacy advocates like Chris Conley of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California say Facebook, even in the proposed policy, is not telling users enough about how it uses data they don’t actively share, such as how Facebook tracks visits to the pages of other users.

Other critics say Facebook often implements new features that affect a user’s data without communicating what users get out of it. “They are constantly changing things, and they don’t notify the users, and I think that bothers users,” said Amber Yoo of the San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

And Facebook doesn’t appear likely to stop discovering new ways to utilize user data.

As the proposed privacy policy says: “Granting us this permission not only allows us to provide Facebook as it exists today, but it also allows us to provide you with innovative features and services we develop in the future that use your information in new ways.”（source:mercurynews）