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Petition launched about Facebook privacy concerns


Thursday, May 3, 2012

Consumers Union launches petition, ads about Facebook privacy concerns

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, is calling on Facebook and its users to pay more attention to privacy online.
CU has launched a petition at hearusnow.org to urge Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to provide users with better privacy tools and full information about everything Facebook collects about them.
The consumer organization has a full-page print ad and online banner ads running in Politico today to highlight its concerns and the petition drive. The ad’s headline reads: “Facebook and its users could learn something about sharing.”
The CU ad notes how Facebook keeps track of practically everything users do on the site, as well as other web sites, and will only share some of that information with users. Plus, Facebook is supporting efforts to allow the government broad access to user records.
The ad also mentions findings from Consumer Reports magazine, which spotlights Facebook and privacy matters in its June 2012 issue (read the CR article here and CR press release here) The ad cites a national survey by Consumer Reports that projects nearly 13 million Facebook users have never set privacy controls.
The ad ends with: “Facebook should think twice about how it shares your private information…and so should you.”
The petition site at hearusnow.org also offers a Consumer Reports video to help Facebook users engage the site’s privacy features.
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