Germany's Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Peter Schaar has warned that many social networking sites still haven't totally gotten on board with protecting users' data. In an interview with German news agency dpa, Schaar specifically mentioned Facebook, the largest of such sites, and its recent changes to its privacy settings.

The default of the new setup puts everyone at the weakest privacy level, making their personal information and uploaded photos public. While users did have to accept the changes, Schaar still considers this to be user protection "unfriendly."

"You press 'next' and then suddenly you've made your information totally available without the original access restrictions," he said.

Privacy advocates in the US have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission over the new changes and have called on Facebook to restore the old settings.

Independent evaluation

Schaar told dpa he's not against social networks in general. "What's important to me," he said, "is that people are aware of what they're doing, what information they're putting on the internet and the problems associated with certain activities."

It can be difficult to encourage companies like Facebook that are based outside of Germany to change their policies, Schaar said. He added that cooperation at the international level will be necessary to combat the problem of lax data protection rules.

In particular, Schaar suggested the establishment of an independent consumer protection agency that could evaluate social networks, giving them grades on their privacy policies and let user know which sites protected them the best.

Such an agency was part of the coalition agreement between Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and their coalition partners the Free Democrats.


hf/dpa/AP
Editor: Andreas Illmer