Under European pressure, the social network Facebook has finally committed to clearly explaining to users how the company uses their data to profile their activities, send them targeted advertisements and thereby finance the platform, the European Commission announced on Tuesday 9 April.
This is the result of a joint action by the network of national consumer protection authorities and the Commission to require the platform to update the terms and conditions of use in its service contracts (see EUROPE 12100/4).
In the future, Facebook shall specify that it will not charge its users for their consent to share their data and expose themselves to commercial advertising.
“Today Facebook finally shows commitment to more transparency and straight forward language in its terms of use. A company that wants to restore consumers trust after the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal should not hide behind complicated, legalistic jargon on how it is making billions on people’s data”, commented the Commissioner of Justice and Consumers, Věra Jourová, in a statement.
However, it will be necessary to wait until the end of June 2019 at the latest for all the commitments entered into to be fully implemented, according to the agreement reached. If Facebook does not keep its word, the competent national authorities could impose sanctions on the social networking giant.
According to the Commission, this joint action has also led Facebook to: - acknowledge liability in case of negligence, for example when data have been misused by third parties; - restrict its power to unilaterally modify the conditions of use by limiting this prerogative to cases where the modifications are reasonable and take into account the consumer's interest; - modify the rules on temporary retention of content that has been deleted by network users: this content may only be retained in specific cases, for example to satisfy a request from a public authority - and for a maximum of 90 days when the request is technically motivated; - clarify the language relating to Facebook users' right to appeal when their content has been removed from the social network. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)