PALO ALTO – After an unexpected public backlash, Facebook has reserved its decision to begin looking through the garbage of its users for personal information.
The hugely popular social network rolled out the change to its privacy policy only 48 hours ago but was surprised to discover many of its 500 million active users more protective of discarded rubbish than it expected.
Founder Mark Zuckerberg earlier argued that having access to such a level of personal information was something that would “vastly improve the Facebook experience.”
Step too far
“It’s all about sharing,” said the 27-year-old CEO. “Sharing makes everything more awesome and sharing garbage would just be another step to make our awesome service even more awesomer.”
The change was initially discovered by one user spotted a Facebook employee in her back yard at 1:17am.
“I asked the guy what he was doing rummaging through my trash cans,” recalled Michelle Hunter. “He told me he was from Facebook and I should check the new privacy settings.”
Mrs Hunter checked her privacy settings soon after and noted that the Allow us to pick through your garbage option had been checked.
She was reportedly so angry over the privacy breach that she started a Facebook group, leading to an eventual climb down from the company.
Despite originally defending the privacy change, Zuckerberg announced today that the Facebook would halt the collection of user garbage for the time being.
“We got a lot of feedback about the recent changes and what it means for all the trash you throw out,” said Zuckerberg in an explanatory post. “Based on this feedback, we will return to our previous terms while we try to resolve the issue people have with us going through their garbage.”
It’s thought they would return the feature, but with more granular settings allowing users to determine which pieces of trash to make available for examination.
‘Maybe it was a bad idea’
Unsurprised at the latest privacy misstep, technology blogger Robert Scoble commented that Facebook “make this mistake over and over when it comes to privacy.”
“They should’ve realised that people would want control over how and when Facebook goes through their trash and made it opt-in at least.”
However, despite the privacy considerations at the company deteriorating to a point at which they felt it ok to go through personal trash, many said they weren’t concerned “just as long as they don’t mess up the news feed again.”
Leave a Reply