Privacy Groups Ask FTC to Block Facebook Policy Changes

A coalition of six major consumer privacy groups has asked the Federal Trade Commission to block coming changes to Facebook’s privacy policies that they say would make it easier for the social network to use personal data about its users, including children under 18, in advertising on the site.

In a letter sent to the agency, the coalition said Facebook’s changes, scheduled to go into effect later this week, violate a 2011 order and settlement with the FTC over user privacy. “Facebook users who reasonably believed that their images and content would not be used for commercial purposes without their consent will now find their pictures showing up on the pages of their friends endorsing the products of Facebook’s advertisers,” the letter says. “Remarkably, their images could even be used by Facebook to endorse products that the user does not like or even use.” The company’s new policy says consumers are automatically giving Facebook the right to use their information unless they explicitly revoke permission — and the company made that harder to do by removing the direct link to the control used to adjust that permission.