Friday 20 June 2008

Ottawa law students file complaint over Facebook

Josh Visser, CTV.ca News Staff

A group of University of Ottawa law students have filed a complaint with the privacy commissioner of Canada against the social networking website Facebook.

The 35-page complaint alleges 22 separate violations of Canadian privacy laws by the California-based company under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

"To boil it down simply, it's an issue of honesty and an issue of consent," Lisa Feinberg, a University of Ottawa law student who has just completed her first year, told CTV.ca. "Facebook isn't being completely honest with its users. It presents itself as a social utility site . . . but they are actually involved in a lot of commercial activities."

Feinberg is part of a team of University of Ottawa law students who filed the complaint as part of a project developed while they were interns with the university's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, led by Philippa Lawson.

Read the whole article here.

Good on these guys. I happen to hate Facebook. I'm on it, due to some distinct family pressure, and an innate desire to track down some specific friends, but I always worry about people knowing a bit too much about me and my family.

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