A person might imagine that South Korean authorities would have better things to worry about right now, what with North Korea on the (maybe literal) warpath. Nonetheless, the Korea Communications Commission has found the time to declare Facebook in violation of data privacy laws.
Martyn Williams reported this morning, "Facebook is in breach of South Korean data privacy laws and needs to do a better job of getting consent from users when getting their personal information, a South Korean regulator said Wednesday."
This may not just be a matter of a missing "Accept" button or two, either. Williams wrote, "The Korea Communications Commission . . . criticized Facebook’s handling of personal information, provision of personal information to third parties and the social-networking site’s privacy policy."
Now Facebook has 30 days to respond to the accusations, a somewhat short timespan considering the years it’s taken for Facebook’s privacy policy to reach its current state.
Either PR-wise or in terms of regulations or fines, it’s plausible this could become a significant problem for the company. We have an email out to Facebook on the matter, and will be sure to post an update if representatives choose to reply with something beyond a polite "no comment."