Media + Entertainment

Partner Robert deBrauwere, co-Chair of Pryor Cashman’s Digital Media Group, recently spoke with Law360 for its article “With Graph Search, Facebook Discovers Fresh Privacy Woes,” about Facebook Inc.'s Graph Search feature, which was unveiled on January 15th.

The article discusses privacy concerns resulting from Graph Search's ability to conduct "searches that could create false or unwanted associations, such as 'Current employers of people who like racism,' 'Mothers of Jews who like bacon,' and 'Married people who like prostitutes'." At the same time, Graph Search will "allow users to make new connections by scouring information that other members publicly post in order to reveal shared interests, recommended places, related photos and people who live and work nearby" and to "repurpos[e] data [to] allow the company to maximize its value and create new targeted advertising opportunities."

“The dilemma faced by privacy enthusiasts is that Facebook is not reaching further into the private lives of its users; the data used by the Graph Search feature already exists in some form or another on Facebook and has been made available by the users themselves,” said deBrauwere who is experienced in the area of social media compliance. deBrauwere further states that “[w]hile there may be lawsuits from Facebook users who claim they were unwitting participants and did not anticipate and thus authorize Facebook to have access to their personal information for such purposes, Facebook will likely be able to avoid liability in court because it allows users to control their privacy settings, enabling information they post to be made private and thus inaccessible to Graph Search.”

The bottom line, deBrauwere offered to Law360, is that given Facebook users' ability to control their privacy settings, if there was ever a time to create and enforce a social media policy, whether it be for business or personal purposes, it’s now.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.