Zuckerberg: Facebook ‘Made a Bunch of Mistakes’ on Privacy

Facebook has agreed to a settlement with the FTC over charges that the social network had deceived its users about privacy. The FTC had accused Facebook in an eight-count complaint of not living up to its own promises. Among them: sharing users’ personal information with third parties without their knowledge or consent, changing privacy practices without informing users, and claiming to have a program to verify the security of apps when it didn’t. The terms of the settlement bar Facebook from making any further “deceptive privacy claims.” Facebook also agrees to obtain users’ permission before making any changes to the way the service shares their information. And in a condition similar to the FTC settlement with Google over Google Buzz, Facebook also must submit to regular assessments from privacy auditors for a no less than 20 years. “The most important thing is to ensure consumer privacy going forwred, and we believe this order does that,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz s...