Facebook Deal on Privacy Is Under Attack

Vindu Goel:

If you are among Facebook’s 1.2 billion users, the company says, you are automatically consenting to such social ads. Opting out is impossible for some ads, and for others, the control to stop them is buried deep within the service’s privacy settings.
 
 But on Thursday, the nonprofit advocacy group Public Citizen will try to step up the pressure on Facebook to change its practices. In a legal brief to be filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the group will contend that the settlement violates the laws of seven states, including California and New York, by failing to require Facebook to receive explicit permission from parents before using the personal information of teenage users in advertising.