It seemed Friday morning as if Facebook came out
with guns blazing, aiming for employers who required applicants or
employees to surrender their log-in information. Now there's a softening of
that position, a clarification.
Privacy chief Erin Egan originally wrote, toward
the end of her statement: "We’ll take action to protect the privacy
and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where
appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down
applications that abuse their privileges."
A decidedly more conciliatory approach was just
sent to me by a Facebook spokesperson. They went from "initiating legal
action" to a "engaging with policy makers and other
stakeholders."
Here's the statement: "We don’t think
employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords
because we don’t think it’s right the thing to do. While we do not have any
immediate plans to take legal action against any specific employers, we look
forward to engaging with policy makers and other stakeholders, to help better
safeguard the privacy of our users."...
