CDD: Facebook's Digital Mea Culpa Not Enough

The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), which has filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission because of privacy concerns, says CEO Mark Zuckerberg's apology to Facebook users won't make problems go away.

In a blog post this morning, the CDD, says that while the changes Zuckerberg announced this morning were "a step in the right direction," it'll take more than that to get privacy advocates and government agencies off his back.

Chester doubts Zuckerberg's stated intention of developing a tool that allows users to "share information across sites with their friends." He hearkens back to earlier statements by the troubled young CEO about making marketers a part of the conversation on Facebook. Part of that plan, says Chester, involves serving "the data collection interests of marketers."

"Mr. Zuckerberg can't simply now do a digital 'mea culpa' and hope that Facebook's disapproving members, privacy advocates, and government regulators will disappear…CDD will continue to press U.S. and EU regulators to address Facebook's significant privacy problem."

Kathryn C. Montgomery, Ph.D. Professor of Communication at American University is also calling for regulatory agencies to investigate and develop rules to protect consumer privacy.

"These companies are continuing full steam ahead with new generation of intrusive marketing practices that are based on unprecedented levels of data collection and personal profiling," she said.

By "these companies," Montgomery assumedly includes MySpace and Google, the latter of which the CDD has also taken action against over the DoubleClick buyout. The advocacy group wrote