Connecticut Attorney General Ask Facebook About Fraud
By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-02-21 13:46:08 | Word Count: 664
The heat is on Facebook as they are met with uncomfortable questions regarding the effectiveness of their privacy settings and the company’s stance on privacy neglect. It all began when Kim Rose, State Representative of Connecticut, encountered a bad Facebook experience. Apparently, someone unbeknownst to Rose, created a page using Rose’s name and photos and requested $650 from her Facebook friends. Rose caught wind of this problem early on and went through the recommended procedure of contacting Facebook with several reports explaining the activity and her concerns. Rose reported the case to the social network at least a dozen times and according to Rose, Facebook took too long to address concerns.
These concerns have ignited Connecticut Attorney General George Jespen to question Facebook on their policies, and protocol on detecting, addressing and disabling fraudulent accounts. Jespen went on to ask Facebook about the number of complaints they received in the past 18 months regarding hacked or fraudulent accounts. Jespen’s main concern is regarding the policies on responding to and the timeliness of addressing complaints. Jespen continues that there is a “real and immediate danger of financial fraud and identity theft associated with this scam.” Some of us would have to agree.
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When questioned, Facebook replied that the company’s policy on fraudulent situations includes “complex technical systems to flag and block suspicious behavior, including the creation of phony accounts,” as well as “providing easy reporting channels for people to let us know when something is wrong, and educating people on how to protect themselves.” Complex technical systems? Really, Facebook? Perhaps it would’ve sufficed to simply say “we don’t really know what we’re going to do yet but we’re working on it.”
According to CT Watchdog Jespen has given Facebook a deadline of next week to provide more concrete information regarding stance and policy on fraud. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Facebook hasn’t exactly figured this one out yet. The state Representative of course isn’t the only one who has experienced fraudulent activity on their account. These occurrences happen quite frequently, I’m sure, with us commoner’s but there is no whistle blowing to demand an immediate call to action. We can’t possibly imagine that Facebook has what it takes to protect common users against fraudulent activity on profiles when they can’t even protect their own Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, whose account was hacked before as well.
This is disheartening, to say the very least. Yes, as users we know that there are risk in creating profiles. There are also those hackers who can surpass all security measures to get what they want. Facebook is not being blamed for having a glitch here or there, this is a matter of fixing what’s broken in a timely manner. What happens when the lack of timeliness leads to more and more users donating money to non-existent causes? Are you prepared to reimburse the victimized users, Facebook? Is there a policy already put in place to handle these instances? We’re looking for answers. You have a week to put your heads together and come up with something reliable and effective. The clock is running, Facebook. Tick tock.
