'Frictionless' Facebook sharing a concern for consumer privacy advocates

How many steps should consumers have to take to share personal information online? Depending on whom you ask, the answers range from "as few as possible" to "enough to ensure they know what they're sharing." That's the crux of the debate over frictionless sharing, which plays a central role in a host of features unveiled by Facebook at the end of last month.

Under frictionless sharing a user opts in once to allow an application to share all or parts of their activity in the app on Facebook. Privacy advocates responded quickly to the changes by calling for the Federal Trade Commission to probe Facebook to determine if the new settings violate consumer privacy. The core of their complaint against frictionless sharing is that it turns online sharing into a passive, rather than active, experience. The letter also takes issue with Facebook's recent attempts to publish lightweight actions such as purchasing a movie ticket or downloading music under the one-time opt-in model. Previously most Facebook activity was purposely shared on an individual basis. "Encouraging or prompting users to share personal information is detrimental to consumer privacy not only because the information will be exploited by Facebook and third parties for advertising and other purposes, but also because Facebook could unexpectedly and improperly make significant changes to its Terms of Service or Privacy Policy that would further expose users' personal information," the groups argued. In their letter the groups, which include the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the ACLU, revealed a strong resistance to Web firms encouraging consumers to share more information online with their social networks. But tech observers say that attitude is out of step with the current trend towards more openness online.