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Facebook gave itself an image problem it doesn't need by declaringit's " pretty disappointing " only a small minority of its users voted on its proposed privacypolicy changes. The low turnout could have been its intent allalong since it didn't do a very good job alerting people to thevote. Users have been complaining loudly that notice wasn't displayed onthe main page of the site -- you had to search within the site tofind it -- and they also criticized the one-week voting period asbeing inadequate. Only 342,600 of Facebook's nearly 1 billion users clicked to givetheir two cents on Facebook's policies. And of those that did, only13 percent supported Facebook's proposed policy changes. Because 30 percent of Facebook users didn't turn out to vote onthem, the social network is adopting the proposed amendments to itssite governance and data use policy. Obviously Facebook wants to enact the changes it proposed -- that'sa given. But to publicly call voter turnout "disappointing" when itdidn't adequately promote the vote in the first place seemsdisingenuous. To be fair, there was plenty of media attention about the vote,including instructions on where to find the voting page and how tolog your vote. A week ago, PCWorld reported that Facebook was giving its nearly 1 billion users a chance to vote on the policies. But Facebook, itself, wasn't terribly visible about the vote,despite its assertion that it did put forth a good effort to getpeople to vote on its policies and supposedly served nearly abillion impressions to users about it. The backlash from users is not something Facebook would want todeal with following its IPO flop and growing questions about itsgrowth expectations. One PCWorld reader writes: "I guess they don't really want peopleto vote since there is no notice of this on Facebook." And U.S.-based privacy advocate David Jacobs, the consumerprotection counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center,agrees. "The notice has been seriously inadequate. As far as I can tell,only members of Site Governance and Facebook and Privacy pages werenotified, and the vote is only open for a week," he says. "Theprocedure seems to be flawed, unless the goal is to have a votethat doesn't really mean much." The vote wasn't a new shift toward transparency; in reality, it wasmandated by the site's own regulations that require the company tohold a vote whenever more than 7,000 users comment on a proposedchange. The privacy group Europe Vs. Facebook had instigated anonslaught of comments that flooded Facebook's Site Governance page-- about 40,000 in one week. While it was interesting that the small activist group was able toforce Facebook's hand and make it hold the vote, Facebook went tono great lengths to promote it. In fact, Europe Vs. Facebook founder Max Schrems said that in itshandling of the vote, Facebook " hid the polling center " when it didn't prominently feature it. Follow Christina on Twitter and Google+ for even more tech news and commentary and follow Today@PCWorld on Twitter, too. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as Ultra-thin Saw Blade , Diamond Reciprocating Saw Blade Manufacturer for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Diamond Scroll Saw Blade.
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