The critically acclaimed film The Social Network probably isn’t the only thing bothering Facebook executives this week.
Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), the co-chairmen of the US House of Representatives’ Bipartisan Privacy Caucus, sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter expressing concerns that third-party applications are accessing consumers’ data on the social networking service. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal pointed out a potential privacy loophole on the site.
Markey and Barton have been active on the data-privacy front as of late. They wrote to more than a dozen companies about their privacy practices, and released – and panned – some of the responses this month. Some of the firms said they are unable to detail all of the tracking mechanisms used on their sites, according to The Hill.
Likely sensing that federal legislators and lawmakers could soon take up online data privacy, a handful of advertising and marketing industry groups launched an online advertising self-regulation platform this month.
