A Federal Trade Commission fact-finding mission delving into online privacy issues made a stop in Berkeley Thursday where representatives from two of the largest social networking sites urged regulatory restraint. eSecurity Planet takes a closer look at why Facebook and LinkedIn think the industry does a fine job of policing itself and why privacy advocates beg to differ.
Representatives of some of the leading social sites on the Web today urged federal regulators to resist calls to establish heavy-handed rules that would set limits on the use of consumer data on social networks, warning that far-reaching regulations would threaten to choke off a fast-growing sector of the digital economy.
The Federal Trade Commission continued its inquiry into the privacy implications of online marketing and data collection at a day-long forum at the University of California, Berkeley, hearing from privacy advocates and members of industry as it mulls new regulations.
“Regulation that’s a one-size-fits-all will fail,” said Erika Rottenberg, general counsel at LinkedIn. “There is self-regulation that is going on.”
Each of the industry representatives agreed that in the increasingly cluttered social Web, there are bad actors who endeavor to trick consumers into sharing more information than they realize. However, they called for regulatory restraint, arguing that in most cases those sites or applications fail on their own because word gets around.