BERLIN—German ministers criticized social networking site Facebook on Sunday for failing to respect privacy, following a report of a serious flaw that allowed non-subscribers access to private data.
German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine reported that a glitch potentially allowed anyone access to the contact lists of subscribers.
New subscribers to Facebook are required to enter their email address. However, by entering the email address of an existing user, it was possible to view their full list of contacts, until they had responded to a security request.
This would potentially allow access to hundreds of names, contact details and other personal information, the newspaper reported.
Germany's consumer affairs minister Ilse Aigner criticized the company for a "series of dubious practices".
The glitch shows "Facebook's lack of respect for the privacy of Internet users", she told the newspaper.
Justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger also criticized Facebook, telling the newspaper it "lacked consideration in the management of personal data".
Facebook has become the world's most popular social network with around 500 million users, but it has been dogged by complaints about poor privacy protection.
Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, told reporters at a forum in Dubai on Sunday that privacy was the company's top concern and it would continue to give people more controls.
Internet privacy is a particularly contentious issue in Germany, where the recent launch of Google's Street View service was delayed to allow residents the opportunity to block out their homes from public view.
Source Inquirer.net
Facebook founder eyes China, faces death threats in Pakistan
HONG KONG - The founder of global social networking giant Facebook is so determined to make his company a success in China he's even learning the language.
Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide but has been restricted in China since July 2009 after the deadly ethnic unrest in the restive Xinjiang region.
In a long question and answer session with an audience at Stanford University, Mark Zuckerberg explained how Facebook is only "not winning or going to win" in four countries: China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
"We kind of carved off China and said "Okay this one is extremely complex and has its own dynamics," he told the audience at the Y Combinator start-up school on Saturday.
"In China I think the values are so different from what we have in the US so, before we do anything there, I'm personally spending a lot of time studying it and figuring out what I think the right thing to do is.
"It's kind of a personal challenge this year, I'm taking an hour a day and I'm learning Chinese. I'm trying to understand the language, the culture, the mind-set -- it's just such an important part of the world.
"How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion-six people?"
China is the most populous nation on the planet, with an official tally of 1.3 billion -- 420 million are active online.
On the question of China's openness, Zuckerberg said the company respects local laws and cultural differences, explaining how Nazi content is blocked in Germany because it is illegal there -- but not blocked outside Germany.
And when a user created an "everybody draw Mohammed day" group on the website, Facebook eventually blocked it -- but only in Pakistan, as images of the prophet are against the law.
This did not make everybody happy.
"Someone in Pakistan right now is trying to get me sentenced to death," he said, to ripples of laughter. "No joke, well maybe kind of a joke. I don't think it's that funny."
The site's users spend a total of about 500 billion minutes on the site per month, the company reported separately at the weekend. But its founder doesn't see the site's role as promoting the United States.
"I don't want Facebook to be an American company -- obviously, we are in America -- but I don't want it to be this company that just spreads American values all across the world," Zuckerberg added.
Facebook's origin is now a hit Hollywood movie, "The Social Network", which critics say could be destined for glory at the Oscars.
Zuckerberg says the film got random details right, such as some of his clothes, but key details were wrong. The movie claims he set up Facebook after he was dumped by a girl, but he still has the same pre-Facebook girlfriend, he said.
He concluded the the film makers "can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things."
#View the full interview here: http://mylocator.com/group/facebooklocator
"We've recently rolled out a lot of new updates and controls to privacy. You can now, every single time you post something, you can control who sees that. You can even pick certain people in your network, you can create lists," she said.
"We're always trying to listen to feedback and giving people more and more controls."
While Facebook has become the world's most popular social network with more than 500 million users, it has also been criticized for complex privacy controls and for requiring users to opt out of features that allowed access to their information.
Earlier this year, 14 privacy and consumer protection groups sent a letter to the US Congress saying "Facebook continues to manipulate the privacy settings of users and its own privacy policy so that it can take personal information provided by users for a limited purpose and make it widely available for commercial purposes."
In September, four New York University students launched a social networking site called "Diaspora," which is billed as the "privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network," in an apparent bid to draw discontented Facebook users.
Complaints have led Facebook to modify its privacy controls.
Asked about whether the site has faced pressure to share information with governments, Zuckerberg said: "The only way that we would share any information is if there was an inquiry into criminal activity on Facebook" such as if "someone ... is behaving inappropriately to minors" on the site.
"Otherwise we are definitely not in any way passing information to any governments," she said.
The Middle East is home to about 15 percent of Facebook users, Zuckerberg said, with about two million in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a regional IT hub.
The site's users from around the world spend a total of about 500 billion minutes on the site per month, with half of users logging on each day, she said.
Facebook's origins have been the subject of two recent books and a hit Hollywood movie, "The Social Network."
Source Inquirer.net
Facebook founder eyes China, faces death threats in Pakistan
HONG KONG - The founder of global social networking giant Facebook is so determined to make his company a success in China he's even learning the language.
Facebook has over 500 million users worldwide but has been restricted in China since July 2009 after the deadly ethnic unrest in the restive Xinjiang region.
In a long question and answer session with an audience at Stanford University, Mark Zuckerberg explained how Facebook is only "not winning or going to win" in four countries: China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
"We kind of carved off China and said "Okay this one is extremely complex and has its own dynamics," he told the audience at the Y Combinator start-up school on Saturday.
"In China I think the values are so different from what we have in the US so, before we do anything there, I'm personally spending a lot of time studying it and figuring out what I think the right thing to do is.
"It's kind of a personal challenge this year, I'm taking an hour a day and I'm learning Chinese. I'm trying to understand the language, the culture, the mind-set -- it's just such an important part of the world.
"How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion-six people?"
China is the most populous nation on the planet, with an official tally of 1.3 billion -- 420 million are active online.
On the question of China's openness, Zuckerberg said the company respects local laws and cultural differences, explaining how Nazi content is blocked in Germany because it is illegal there -- but not blocked outside Germany.
And when a user created an "everybody draw Mohammed day" group on the website, Facebook eventually blocked it -- but only in Pakistan, as images of the prophet are against the law.
This did not make everybody happy.
"Someone in Pakistan right now is trying to get me sentenced to death," he said, to ripples of laughter. "No joke, well maybe kind of a joke. I don't think it's that funny."
The site's users spend a total of about 500 billion minutes on the site per month, the company reported separately at the weekend. But its founder doesn't see the site's role as promoting the United States.
"I don't want Facebook to be an American company -- obviously, we are in America -- but I don't want it to be this company that just spreads American values all across the world," Zuckerberg added.
Facebook's origin is now a hit Hollywood movie, "The Social Network", which critics say could be destined for glory at the Oscars.
Zuckerberg says the film got random details right, such as some of his clothes, but key details were wrong. The movie claims he set up Facebook after he was dumped by a girl, but he still has the same pre-Facebook girlfriend, he said.
He concluded the the film makers "can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things."
#View the full interview here: http://mylocator.com/group/facebooklocator
Privacy a Facebook priority, says director Randi Zuckerberg
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates—User privacy is the priority for Internet social networking site Facebook, which has come under fire from users for its privacy settings, the company's director market development said on Sunday in Dubai.
"Privacy, I would say, is the number one most important thing for our company, and we're always listening to feedback," Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, said on the first day of the GITEX information and communication technology exhibition."We've recently rolled out a lot of new updates and controls to privacy. You can now, every single time you post something, you can control who sees that. You can even pick certain people in your network, you can create lists," she said.
"We're always trying to listen to feedback and giving people more and more controls."
While Facebook has become the world's most popular social network with more than 500 million users, it has also been criticized for complex privacy controls and for requiring users to opt out of features that allowed access to their information.
Earlier this year, 14 privacy and consumer protection groups sent a letter to the US Congress saying "Facebook continues to manipulate the privacy settings of users and its own privacy policy so that it can take personal information provided by users for a limited purpose and make it widely available for commercial purposes."
In September, four New York University students launched a social networking site called "Diaspora," which is billed as the "privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all, open source social network," in an apparent bid to draw discontented Facebook users.
Complaints have led Facebook to modify its privacy controls.
Asked about whether the site has faced pressure to share information with governments, Zuckerberg said: "The only way that we would share any information is if there was an inquiry into criminal activity on Facebook" such as if "someone ... is behaving inappropriately to minors" on the site.
"Otherwise we are definitely not in any way passing information to any governments," she said.
The Middle East is home to about 15 percent of Facebook users, Zuckerberg said, with about two million in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a regional IT hub.
The site's users from around the world spend a total of about 500 billion minutes on the site per month, with half of users logging on each day, she said.
Facebook's origins have been the subject of two recent books and a hit Hollywood movie, "The Social Network."
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