Privacy Maven

Amidst various privacy concerns about Facebook, there is another pressing matter the company – and its members – must confront. Facebook is presently under investigation by New York Attorney General, Andrew M. Cuomo for child safety issues:

Yesterday, the attorney general’s office issued a subpoena to the company requesting documents related to the security that Facebook promises to its 42 million users and how it resolves complaints. The subpoena is part of an investigation in which investigators from Mr. Cuomo’s office, posing as young teenagers, set up profiles on Facebook and received online sexual advances from adults within days, prosecutors said.

No charges have been filed against the company, which said yesterday that it was taking the allegations seriously. The attorney general’s office is investigating whether Facebook’s advertising and statements to users are “materially misleading” under state laws that prohibit deceptive business practices, Mr. Cuomo said in a letter yesterday to Facebook’s chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg.

Facebook, which Mr. Zuckerberg started when he was a student at Harvard, originally distinguished itself from MySpace by allowing only students from participating universities, and later high schools, to join. But in 2005, it allowed anyone to sign up — without, Mr. Cuomo’s office alleges, changing the way it promotes itself as a safer, more controlled network than similar sites.

On its site, Facebook calls itself a “trusted environment,” bans the posting of obscene or harmful material, and promises parents that it will remove offensive messages and photos and act appropriately in response to complaints.

But about a week after an investigator from Mr. Cuomo’s office set up a profile for a fictitious 14-year-old girl on Aug. 30, a 24-year-old man sent a message through Facebook asking her for “nude pics,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The investigator, also posing as the fictitious girl’s mother, sent an e-mail message to Facebook complaining about the man’s request. Facebook responded that it would review the message and remove any posts that violated its rules. But in his letter, Mr. Cuomo said that Facebook had taken no action as of yesterday, and that the 24-year-old man’s profile was still on the site.

A press release from the Attorney General details concerns:

In recent weeks, investigators from Cuomo’s office have conducted a number of undercover tests of Facebook’s safety controls and procedures. Posing as underage users, the investigators found they were repeatedly solicited by adult sexual predators on Facebook and could easily access a wide range of pornographic images and videos. Even more disturbingly, Facebook often did not respond, and at other times was slow to respond, to complaints lodged by the investigators – posing as parents of underage users – asking the site to take action against predators who had harassed their children.

“My office is concerned that Facebook’s promise of a safe website is not consistent with its performance in policing its site and responding to complaints,” Cuomo said. “Parents have a right to know what their children will encounter on a website that is aggressively marketed as safe.”

During the course of our review, the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) set up several undercover Facebook profiles representing users between twelve and fourteen years old. Consistent with its current open policy, Facebook did not require verification of a high school email address or any other identifying information in order to register the account.

Privacy Maven recommends the child safety resources on the FTC website OnGuardOnline.gov. The FBI also has a useful website .