Blame it on Canada - Facebook and stricter Canadian Privacy Laws

I had to publish this from Mashable. Not only because of the privacy issue but of the fact that 33.333333 per cent of Canadians are on Facebook. OMG!!! That's a third of country - wild! Oh yes, and did I mention that I'm Canadian so very interested in these cross-border cultural differences.

So here goes:

Facebookcanada - A Canadian privacy commission report released on Thursday says that Facebook breaches privacy laws there.

The report, outlined by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart at a press conference in Ottawa, criticizes the fact that Facebook retains user information after users have closed their accounts.

Facebook has around 12 million Canadian users, which equates to 1/3 of the population; and yet the country’s privacy commission expressed “an overarching concern” that Facebook’s privacy information displayed to users is “often confusing or incomplete.” Other criticisms were targeted at Facebook’s apps program: the report says too much private data is provided to 3rd party developers.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s retention of data from deactivated accounts violates the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the commission claims.

Facebook has been given 30 days to implement the changes, and has already agreed to “most” of them, according to a release. Facebook (Facebook) Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly is quoted in an AFP report on the issue as saying “We continue our dialogue and have every confidence that we will come to acceptable conclusions. I think the concerns are fully resolvable.”