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Under intense fire and criticism from lawmakers, the media and its users for how it has handled the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg are letting users start from zero.
Ahead of the company's F8 developer conference, Zuckerberg announced a new "Clear History" feature built into Facebook.
"In your web browser, you have a simple way to clear your cookies and history. The idea is a lot of sites need cookies to work, but you should still be able to flush your history whenever you want," Zuckerberg wrote. "We're building a version of this for Facebook too. It will be a simple control to clear your browsing history on Facebook -- what you've clicked on, websites you've visited, and so on."
[...] Zuckerberg, who was recently grilled on Capitol Hill about everything from data privacy, whether the company collects data on non-users (it does) and his old sexist website FaceMash, cautioned that by clearing your Facebook history , the feature will not be as effective until it relearns a user's preferences.
[...] A survey conducted by the Ponemon Institute, a U.S.-based think tank, found that just 27 percent of 3,000 respondents believe Facebook will protect their privacy and user data, down from 79 percent in 2017. The survey's results were first reported by The Financial Times.
Also at CNN, Threatpost & TechSpot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday May 04 2018, @02:00AM
You're right, of course. Realistically, politicians are going to use all the tools at their disposal to drum up votes. The tech egg has hatched, and you can't put the chicken back in the shell.
We CAN, however, decide how morals, ethics, and laws might apply to all this data collection and usage.
Like many other members of Soylent, I am disgusted by Facebook's intrusiveness. In fact, I hate all intrusive data collection. It's time we took some affirmative action, and decide what we will permit corporations and politicians to do. I'm not getting my hopes up though. Joe and Sally Sixpack really don't have a clue about intrusive technology. Amazon offers Alexa, and millions of Americans buy in. Ditto with Siri, and every other data collection tool offered by the tech companies. "Ooooohhhh, SHINEY!"