INTERNET : REDING TRUSTS FACEBOOK AND OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS.

Tech Europe October 6, 2008 As with mobile telephone operators, Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding trusts online social networks such as Facebook or Myspace to develop self-regulation to cope with data and child protection problems. She confirmed that view, on 26 September in Luxembourg, at a Safer Internet forum that brought together public authorities, academics, consumer groups, associations active in child protection online, and representatives of social networking firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Bebo and Myspace. see here music notes facebook

According to the commissioner, the “openness” of social networks, their “cultural diversity” and “interactivity” make them an outstanding – and inexpensive – tool for society and European business, which can be used for client service, advertising, mobile telephony and new technologies, human resources, entertainment, etc.

Social networks, of which the most widely known is Facebook (with 100 million users worldwide), are in fact an infinite resource for advertisers interested in targeting their announcements. When registering, future members of a social network provide personal data: name, contact details, education and sex, but also sexual preferences, musical taste, political opinions, religious beliefs and professional experience. They do so voluntarily, since such data are the mainspring of their “social success”.

In addition to data of this kind, Facebook compiles and stores IP addresses and type of browser, and relies on cookies stored on the user’s computer. To have more storage capacity, the social networks also make use of third-party storage services.

The data naturally attract advertisers: “These data enable us to estimate the number of people in your network who like a given piece of music or film, or to personalise the advertisements and promotions we present on Facebook. We think this is to your advantage,” notes Facebook. The data may also be directly transmitted to advertisers. web site music notes facebook

Commissioner Reding hopes that European sites such as Hyves in the Netherlands, SchuelerVZ.de StudiVZ in Germany, Aha.bg in Bulgaria or E puls and Grono in Poland will make a breakthrough on the market. Social networking is also a source of jobs: since being founded in 2000, Finland’s Sulake Corporation, one of “Europe’s champions in this field” according to Reding, has expanded from its head office in Helsinki to 14 other offices worldwide and employs more than 300 people. Facebook and MySpace also have offices in Europe, which “employ local staff to take account of the culture of the host country”.

GUIDELINES Certain phenomena are nevertheless cause for concern for children, both very young children and the 12 to 14-year-olds who spend an average of one to three hours a day online. Grooming is one such problem [where adults pass for young people with the intent of abusing children], along with inappropriate content, abuse of personal information and cyber-bullying. According to a Danish study, 31.5% of the 12 to 18-year-olds who participated said they have had bad experiences on the internet, 70.1% of which caused by messages from strangers.

The Commission has set up a task force of social networking professionals with the aim of adopting voluntary guidelines. The EU executive considers that although there are many measures to protect young users, including tracing and parental control, it is equally important to create a sense of responsibility among those who have grown up with internet through age check systems and industry self-regulation. As she did with mobile operators in 2007, the commissioner will be unveiling guidelines on the potential risks to children and adolescents in social networking on 10 February 2009.

In just one year, social networking has increased by 35% in Europe, with huge success in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The number of regular users is expected to rise from 41.7 million to 107.4 million in the next four years.