I think people would be surprised at the fact that there’s no single, overarching federal law to protect your privacy in the United States.
The row over Facebook's change in its terms of service governing users personal data highlights the need for a privacy law, claims a leading watchdog.
The Electronic Privacy Information Centre was on the brink of filing a legal complaint when Facebook announced it would revert to its old policy.
The new terms seemingly gave Facebook vast control over users' content.
"This row underlines the need for comprehensive privacy laws," said Epic's president Marc Rotenberg.
"It is great that Facebook has responded by going back to its old terms of service. That is a step in the right direction, but these issues don't go away.
"It's going to be an ongoing concern for users until we get privacy laws in place," Mr Rotenberg told the BBC.
It certainly is a concern for me, although Facebook may not be the best way to make these issues clear to most people. After all, Facebook’s whole purpose is sharing, publishing, exhibiting. Privacy risks become clearer for people when they’re thinking more in terms of storing (and limited, controlled sharing of) information you want otherwise to keep private, such as your financial or health information*.
*I work for the Microsoft team that created HealthVault, and privacy is one of the policy issues I help manage.
