Facebook, the second most viewed website in the United States, has increasingly seen criticism for the way it handles privacy matters and today the new setting changes have been deemed "unacceptable" by EU data protection authorities.
The authority, the Article 29 Working Party wrote in a letter that the new changes are "detrimental to the user."
The default settings, changed in the last month, made it so every user is searchable by search engines, even if the user does not explicitly sign off on it.
Third party applications can also take data from the profiles and use it to bring more personalized ads, but the group says that also should be explicitly signed off on by the user.
Finally, the group says "that it would breach data protection law if they use personal data contained on an individual profile page for commercial purposes without consent."
The default settings, changed in the last month, made it so every user is searchable by search engines, even if the user does not explicitly sign off on it.
Third party applications can also take data from the profiles and use it to bring more personalized ads, but the group says that also should be explicitly signed off on by the user.
Finally, the group says "that it would breach data protection law if they use personal data contained on an individual profile page for commercial purposes without consent."
