Facebook Under More Privacy Pressure

In the second article in recent days about Facebook and privacy, the New York Times highlights a Facebook founder’s attempts to keep his past private. This follows an article which questioned the privacy issues surrounding a new advertising system called Beacon. The NY Times says on Dec 3:

Social networking Web sites can seem dedicated to the idea that nobody8217s personal life is worth keeping private, but when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg 8212 the founder of Facebook, one of the largest networks 8212 Facebook disagrees.

Facebook tried last week to force the magazine 02138 to remove some unflattering documents about Mr. Zuckerberg from its Web site. But a federal judge turned down the company8217s request for a court order to take down the material, according to the magazine8217s lawyers.

The dispute stemmed from a lawsuit charging that in 2003 and 2004, as a student at Harvard, Mr. Zuckerberg stole the idea and some of the computer source code for Facebook from some fellow students. They were planning a networking site of their own and had hired Mr. Zuckerberg to help with the programming.

Last week, Facebook had to water down plans for their advertising system Beacon after concerns about privacy raised by the NY Times.