News:Facebook to undergo privacy checks for 20 years

WASHINGTON: Social networking giant Facebook will be subjected to two decades of regular privacy checkups and other penalties, as part of a settlement finalised by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC agreement implicated that Facebook must now obtain 'consent' before sharing a user's information with advertisers or others, which differs from its current privacy settings, and also bars the social site from misrepresenting its privacy and security practices again.

The settlement has the same outlines as the agreement, which FTC reached with Google in 2011 over that company's botched rollout of the Buzz social network, Politico reports.

The FTC faulted Facebook in 2011 for the way the company had handled users' private information, and allowed access of third-party apps.

Among other slip-ups, in December of 2009, Facebook changed its site in ways, which resulted in the private information of users being available to the public, the report said.

The FTC also charged Facebook with misrepresenting the sort of information that it shared with advertisers, and said that the social site wasn't clear with users about the fate of their photos and videos, upon deletion of their accounts, as some of the content didn't disappear, contrary to what the site states, it added.

PRASHANT KUMAR