EXPERTS NOT CONVINCED BY FACEBOOK CHANGES

Security software experts at Sophos have decided to air some concerns over upcoming changes to Facebook’s ‘Groups’ system. While a Sophos representative says that the changes “suggest a step in the right direction” towards protecting personal information online, the new additions may in fact add complexity, rather than improving online safety.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday that several alterations are being made to the site, in particular with regards to the Groups system. Zuckerberg revealed there would be “tighter control” over Groups and a dashboard amongst the Facebook privacy interface to show what Facebook applications have access to user’s data.

The company claimed that the changes would make it easier to share information with smaller and more intimate groups of friends. However, Paul Ducklin, Sophos’s head of technology in the Asia Pacific region, argues that the latest changes implemented by the social networking giant, may well simply be another missed opportunity to get the fundamentals right.

“Adding more security-related dashboards, buttons and knobs is a start, I guess,” says Ducklin in a blog post. “But I, and many others, think that Facebook would do better to make a real grassroots change to its security.”

Ducklin wants to see Facebook adopt a completely opt-in model, in which you can sign up as easily as you can today, but can’t do much at all on the site until you have decided to open up each feature. In a poll conducted by Sophos earlier this year, 93% of those asked said that they would prefer to “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” of sharing their information with others.

“No doubt Facebook shareholders looking forward to the IPO will want to maximise the number of users and the openness and availability of the information posted,” continued Ducklin. “But Facebook is influential enough now, I reckon, to make bigger long-term gains by getting ahead of the regulatory curve than by waiting until legislators force them to change their opt- in/opt-out attitudes.”

What do you make of the changes?

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