Is social media hijacking our privacy? Or is it the user’s responsibility to understand terms of use? What security precautions do you take when using social media? Is online privacy a concern to you in day-to-day life?
Last month, the B.C Supreme Court certified a class action lawsuit launched by a Vancouver woman who claims that Facebook violates user privacy by featuring users in advertising products without user permission. Christopher Rhone is the lawyer representing this case, and he argues that “when [their] names and portraits are being taken, and put into advertisements for the gain of the company, that’s just wrong”.
Christopher Rhone is a partner with Branch MacMaster LLP. He argues that no one should be able to use your name and online activity to endorse a product without permission, claiming that it violates B.C’s Privacy Act. Facebook is denying this breach, stating that all people using its service had to register as members and accept its terms of use as set out in what it calls a “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities”.
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June 19, 2014
12:30 – 1:30 pm.
Room 1600, SFU’s Vancouver Campus at Harbour Centre
Free
Guests are welcome to bring their lunch to City Conversations events
It’s quite an argument. I’m not sure that I like Facebook’s position very much: “You signed the agreement, so we will do what you agreed we can do.”
First, I see it as FB using their social media dominance to get people to agree to abuse in order to be able join their family and friends on FB. There must be cases of other market dominators abusing their position and their customers. Sort of like Standard Oil did, which spawned anti-trust legislation in around 1909.
Second, I’m quite sure that FB is abusively trading on the common tendency of many people who agree to various terms of use without reading them. As an example, and famously, one software provider put a clause in their license agreement that required the buyer to consign their immortal soul to the devil. Few if any objected to it.