Icing on the cake the data collected will be kept

Facebook crossed, once again, the yellow line in "policing" of Internet users The social network is causing us a lift of shields similar to that which he had initiated two years ago, already proposing a controversial solution, Beacon, corrected since.

Presented by the founder of the site itself, Mark Zuckerberg, as the technology "the most significant is ever developed for the Web", Open Graph presents itself to the users in the form of a single button "Like" ("I love") (see below). By choosing to click this button, the user indicates a personal preference (a restaurant, a shop, etc.). What he does not know, is that by using this function, it tacitly authorizes all Facebook advertisers wishing to have access to these preferences. Best, using this technology, Facebook can convey the same personal information of the friends of that user to partners: advertisers, suppliers of services or applications - including games for young people - eager to learn still more about the tastes and habits of Internet users.

"Gold mine".

Because in seeking to "promote social activity on the Internet", as the spokesperson for Facebook, Elliot Schrage, it is especially to multiply the available personal data so that each cyber-merchant can offer a product or the most personalized service possible. This collection of information on the Internet, the new commercial offers can even send by mail or by phone. Icing on the cake: the data collected will be kept... indefinitely. "What they come for, is a veritable gold mine for intrusive advertising, or even spammers", summarizes the New York Senator, Charles ce, immediately gone on a crusade, with three other Democratic Senators against the new Facebook initiative.

The will of advertisers to target their customers always better is not new. But, today, they get more and more personal information, without the explicit agreement of the persons concerned. By default, Facebook indeed opens all gates of the collection of information and must be to the user much patience and perspicacity to close one in the corners of the site, without being certain to do so completely. The situation is even more serious that the site now has more than 400 million users and is one on which users spend the most time: 6 h 30 per month on average, three times more than Yahoo!, the dauphin.

An act of anti-Facebook

Charles Schumer and his colleagues come to seize the Federal Trade Commission, the authority of American commerce, so that it quickly offers clear rules on what can be, or not, social networks in the collection and exchange of personal data. As the founder of Facebook made no secret that Open Graph was only the beginning of a new series of developments of the same kind. In private, he would have even entrusted his contempt for the privacy of its users...

For Charles Schumer, the context can be favourable: the Democrats are seeking to prevent major US technology firms from abusing their positions of power. To be taken to Google and Intel, among others, Facebook may well be the next on the list.