Faceboook and the FTC came to a settlement on privacy concerns that were brought to light last year when brave independent bloggers relentlessly assailed the Social Network's shifting and unclear privacy policy.

The worst of the incidents involved Facebook users in foreign nations. When their Facebook "wall" became visible to their community at large, they discovered members of their community that liked to engage in homosexual activity, they discovered people questioning Islam, and a whole bunch of young people talking about the pre-marital sex they just had. The community leaders in these countries took it upon themselves to publicly ostracize, banish, and in more than one case, murder the "outed" "friends of friends" who were unclear that although FaceBook worked one way one day that did not mean that it would not change it's nature on a dime. For many in the developing world FaceBook is their first contact with the technologically advanced western cultures like America.

The total list of unkept promises as reported by the FTC are neatly summed up in this article at the Guardian UK:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/29/facebook-ftc-privacy-se...

"The FTC said Facebook made eight specific promises that it did not keep.

In December 2009, Facebook changed its website so certain information that users may have designated as private – such as their friends list – was made public. They did so without warning or approval in advance.

Facebook said that company's apps would have access only to the information that they needed to operate. In fact, the apps could access nearly all of users' personal data – data the apps didn't need, said the FTC.

Facebook told users they could restrict sharing of data to limited audiences – for example with Friends Only. In fact, selecting Friends Only did not prevent their information from being shared with third-party applications their friends used.

Facebook had a Verified Apps programme, and claimed it certified the security of participating apps. It didn't.

Facebook promised users that it would not share their personal information with advertisers. It did.

Facebook claimed that when users deactivated or deleted their accounts, their photos and videos would be inaccessible. But Facebook allowed access to the content, even after users had deactivated or deleted their accounts.

Facebook claimed that it complied with the US–EU Safe Harbour Framework that governs data transfer between the US and the European Union. It didn't."

The FTC saw it fit to allow Facebook to simply do what Google and Twitter have already volunteered to do: Come in for third party privacy audits every 2 years for the next 20. 10 dates with a clipboard.

So the message the FTC wants to send is: if you create a social connection service where you lie to everyone on the planet, inspire people to kill and get killed, break up relationships, start new ones, have falling outs in their families, socially awkward disclosures with the public, expose the secrets of families and networks of friends to oppressive governments all over the world, all in the blind pursuit of maximum page views for ad revenue and maximum yeild of information for "other" revenue, you better watch out because free press bloggers will stay up nights and weekends writing and trumpeting that you should be brought to justice, the media will pick up the story and force you to answer for your crimes in your own press releases, making them so visible that the FTC will launch an investigation and when it discovers that you did indeed lie to everyone on the fricking planet, you did indeed sell all of your users data to marketers and other interested organizations after specifically promising not to, when the FTC finds out about that then you're going to have 10 lame as audits over the next 20 years just like everyone else in your industry volunteered to do. and since there was no punitive element of the settlement it can be assumed that if the "Privacy Audits" that happen every two years show that Facebook is continuing to sell information that it acquires by promising not to sell it, then more toothless FTC BJ's are in your future Mr Zuckerberg. I hope they make you as sick with disgust as you have made the few of us who can see the creepy way you roll.