[IRP] EPIC Forces Disclosure of Government Contracts with Social Media Companies, Privacy Terms Missing

[katitza at datos-personales.org]

EPIC Forces Disclosure of Government Contracts with Social Media
Companies, Privacy Terms Missing

In response to an EPIC Freedom of Information Act Request, the Government
Services Administration released several contracts between the federal
government and web 2.0 companies, including agreements with Blip.tv,
Blist, Google (YouTube), Yahoo (Flickr), and MySpace. EPIC also obtained
amendments to agreements with Facebook, Slideshare.net, Vimeo.com, and
AddThis.com. The contracts do not address the privacy obligations of
social media companies. The GSA letter to EPIC explained that ?no specific
Web 2.0 guidance currently exists,? but provided EPIC with Training Slides
that raise privacy issues. The GSA Agreement with Google actually states
that, ?to the extent any rules or guidelines exist prohibiting the use of
persistent cookies in connection with Provider Content applies to Google,
Provider expressly waives those rules or guidelines as they may apply to
Google.? Some of the agreements also permit companies to track users of
government web sites for advertising purposes. For more information see
EPIC Social Network Privacy, EPIC Facebook, and EPIC Cloud Computing.

http://epic.org/2009/08/epic-forces-disclosure-of-gove.html