. To give them their due Facebook alerted their members to these proposals and even gave them a chance to vote on them in a binding poll ( a 30% turnout with a majority against would have led to them keeping their existing policy - allegedly). They said that they emailed all their members twice to tell them details of how to cast a vote as well as publicising it on their site.
The results?
Less then 1% of their members even bothered to vote.
Maybe we ought to be giving lessons in privacy (or rather the lack of it) in schools. That is just shocking.
BTW, of the less than 1% that did vote 88% voted against.
I don't have a Facebook account and have never even visited their website, so I can't guarantee that everything I have written here is 100% accurate, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was.
Facebook actually has very good privacy controls in place, and you can easily disable the behavior you are commenting on. Most people just don't care I think. Making them care through education might work, but I'd rather have such things be legislated to be opt-in vs. opt-out. Like the cookie law in Europe, which requires websites to get your consent prior to placing a cookie on your computer unless that cookie is needed to use the website (like for a shopping cart in an online store; but social website tracking cookies need your consent on each website). Opt-in vs. opt-out protects the interests of consumers.
