Last September the FTC filed a complaint against Myspace for alleged violation of its privacy policy. Myspace had told users it would not provide personal information about them without first getting permission. However, Myspace had been giving advertisers information about its users who were viewing particular pages on the website. It provided unique ID numbers of certain users to advertisers so advertisers could then access publicly available personal information. The personal information included a profile picture, username, age, gender, and full name. Some profiles also contained more photos and information about hobbies, activities, and friends.
Myspace denied the allegations claiming it followed the U.S.–E.U. Safe Harbor Framework. Myspace maintained it gave consumers notice of what it was doing and gave users the choice to opt-out. The FTC alleged these statements were false and the two settled this May. Myspace has agreed to implement a comprehensive privacy policy and be subject to independent privacy assessments every other year for twenty years. The settlement was finalized September 11, 2012.
The FTC cracked down on Myspace as part of its mission to make sure companies are keeping their privacy promises to consumers. The FTC had similar settlements with Facebook and Google last year. This August, the FTC also announced that Google agreed to pay a $22.5 million fine. Google agreed to the fine in order to settle allegations that it had secretly tracked web activity of Apple Safari users in violation of an earlier settlement. This will be the FTC’s largest civil penalty yet.
With privacy issues on every social media users’ mind, the FTC is doing their best to protect users. David Vladeck, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the FTC, hopes this penalty “will force Google to have a better sense of what’s going on.” And maybe it will force other companies to do the same.