Rumor has it that Facebook is close to reaching a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to settle charges related to privacy. While the privacy settlement may sound like a good idea, it is sort of a smoke and mirrors exercise because the reality is that privacy and social networking are polar opposites that don’t play nicely together.
One of my PCWorld peers, Jon P. Mello Jr., took a close look at what we know of the settlement terms, and found it lacking. The conditions of the settlement seem to address only a certain set of privacy concerns, varies based on when you joined Facebook, and doesn’t affect new features that Facebook rolls out in the future. It is basically a slap on the wrist for something that occurred in 2009 which appears to do more to confuse the privacy issues than resolve them.
