One month ago there was an ultimatum thrown down for Facebook from waay up north. Comply with Canada’s private-sector privacy laws or else.  In this case,  “or else” refers to the Federal Court of Canada which could issue a court order for the California-based company to comply with Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

The heart of the issue here is not (yet) the sharing of a user’s private data with thousands of third-party developers in over 180 countries, but specifically the confusing way Facebook provides information on how it shares your information and keeps user info regardless if they opt-out of the service or not.

Today, we should learn if Facebook has satisfied the Canadian Privacy Commission’s concerns. This is a first for Facebook and will provide a very import precedent for colossal social media platforms and the individual user.

I have to admit, this keeps bringing to mind the general advice I have been giving for years to anyone with privacy concerns;  “don’t provide any personal information online you don’t want people to know.” Perhaps that is overly simple but over the last 13 years I have never assumed anything in the cloud is completely private or secure. That’s the nature of the Internet – to provide and find information and something each one of us has to take responsibility for when faced with this choice. If a company asks for information you do not have to provide it – even if millions happily are.