Austrian privacy advocates see progress after talks with Facebook

Feb 7, 2012, 13:13 GMT

Vienna - Austrian privacy activists said Tuesday that they had made some progress in their first talks with social nework operator Facebook, but vowed they would continue to press the company to improve its handling of user data.

Monday's meeting between the two sides came after the activists had logged complaints with the data protection agency in Ireland - the headquarters of Facebook's European operations.

Facebook had promised to implement changes by the end of March, said Max Schrems, a law student who founded the group 'Europe-v-Facebook'.

'We had a very constructive meeting with Mr Schrems and his colleague in Vienna,' said Facebook, which is currently preparing the biggest technology initial public offering in US history.

Schrems said that he wants the US company to give users an active choice in agreeing to Facebook's data policy.

Facebook should also remove information from its servers that users have deleted and provide better information about what happens with their data, he said.

Schrems charged that the Irish data commissioner was not interested in challenging Facebook and said that authorities rather than a group of students should solve the problem.

'They are following the motto: We don't want to take a decision.' he said about the commissioner's office.

While the office called on Facebook in December to improve its data policies along the lines described by Schrems, it did not identify any breach of law.

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