Facebook’s controversial privacy policy updates —
announced back in August — are taking effect today.
In a blog post today, the company goes out of its way to explain that the update doesn’t change Facebook’s advertising policies, it only changed the language in Facebook’s official policy documents.
One of the controversial word changes, however, has been removed — a sentence related to minors and their parents. The language said that Facebook was assuming parental consent of the company’s potential use of personal information in connection with sponsored content. In today’s announcement, Facebook says that’s been deleted.
We also proposed an update that we thought would help facilitate conversations between teens and their parents about using Facebook. Specifically, we added a sentence that said if you are under the age of eighteen you have talked to your parent or guardian and they also agree to some of our terms. This language was about getting a conversation started; we were not seeking and would not have gained any additional rights as a result of this addition. We received feedback, though, that the language was confusing and so we removed the sentence.
Though the privacy policy updates are in effect now, the FTC continues to investigate whether Facebook violated a 2011 settlement by announcing the changes without first getting an FTC review.
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