Now the basic premise of social networking is to allow this kind of interaction to build a “social network”, so I was faced with the problem of explaining this to people that didn’t quite understand how all of this fits into a data protection policy. Their default policy strictly prohibits the sharing of that kind of information and wanted the message removing. As far as I can tell there is no way to change that message.

So the problem is how does all this work together? The answer is quite straightforward. Facebook have gone to great lengths to protect their users data. There are policies in place to legally restrict what users can do, there is a developer policy as well. The API itself controls and prevents certain functions to allow the social interactions without allowing the application to abuse them. They even have a team that has to approve applications before they can be publicly available through Facebook.

They also have built a lot of functionality into Facebook to empower users with the ability to control their own privacy settings. One of these to control who has access to friends information. Every Facebook user has these settings and can control how their information is used. The code within the API takes these settings into consideration when performing operations with third party applications.

So the answer is clear. Don’t over complicate data protection policies within a social networking environment. Gone are the days when they had privacy issues. Facebook has, very publicly, built a great suite of tools and policies to protect their users. Don’t force users to adhere to another data protection policy when they themselves have the power to control their own. If user education is a concern, then add instructions on how a user can go about changing their privacy settings.

Too much policy control will cause problems with the evolving Internet. Don’t get me wrong, privacy and data protection are probably the biggest concern on the Internet, and life in general, today. But put in usable policies, work with the tools available and empower the user. That way, a balance can be made and the evolving web can keep moving forward.