A-Gs to probe kids’ privacy on Facebook

THE nation’s attorneys-general will discuss whether laws should be introduced to allow parents access to their children’s Facebook accounts and social networking sites, allowing them to legally breach their privacy.

The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General will focus on social networking and new-media legal issues when it meets in Adelaide today, including discussions on what can be done to crack down on breaches of suppression orders on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

South Australian Attorney-General John Rau yesterday said there needed to be a discussion on the impact of new technologies on suppression orders.

“Sooner or later there has to be a discussion about what is going to be occurring in the virtual world, because technology has been moving very quickly,” Mr Rau told The Australian.

“We need to look at the policing that occurs, who can and should do it and how do you do it.”

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Mr Rau said the attorneys-general needed to look at whether parents should have rights to access their children’s accounts, despite concerns it would breach privacy.

“For some reason, when you mention Facebook, people think the rules should be different.”

Australian Privacy Foundation chairman Roger Clarke said there had always been a grey area regarding children and teenagers, and each case needed to be looked at separately.

“It is difficult and most inappropriate to come up with a rule that at the age of 13 or 18 they become grown-ups and independent of their parents and have the right to privacy,” Dr Clarke said.

Dr Clarke said a knee-jerk reaction to restrict access to public space would be a “horrible thing”.

“If they do something silly they’re going to undermine an existing law and relationships between children and parents.”

The attorneys-general will also discuss what can be done to ensure suppression orders are not breached, as has happened in several high-profile court cases.

Last November, Jason Alexander Downie was accused online of being the murderer of Chantelle Rowe, 16, and her parents Andrew and Rose, shortly after he allegedly committed the crimes. His name was suppressed until recently and he is facing charges.

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has been campaigning for new laws to target social networking sites for several years. Last year he unsuccessfully proposed new laws targeted at pedophiles to stop adults lying about their age when dealing with underage children on the internet.

Senator Xenophon said there was a desperate need for law reform when it came to the internet.

“We’ve got 20th-century laws that aren’t coping with the 21st-century phenomenon of social media,” Senator Xenophon said.

“I urge the state attorneys-general to take an innovative approach; they need to, and we need to have a national conversation about this.”

But Senator Xenophon agreed the issue needed to be treated delicately because it could cause relationship breakdowns between parents and children.

The standing committee will also discuss the recent High Court decisions relating to organised crime legislation, and R+ ratings for video games.

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Dissatisfied Facebook Users Leave Opening for Google+

Analytics firm ForeSee’s 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report said the site elicits a slightly favorable response but still came in dead last among social networks, in its survey of how customers feel about social media.

Facebook, now at the 750 million-member milestone mark, increased its customer satisfaction score to 66, up two points from last year’s ranking, a sign ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed said indicates the social network “may be moving in the right direction, albeit very slowly.”

“More than half our users visit Facebook every day, and we’re constantly enhancing our products to offer people the best possible experience,” said the company in a statement responding to the survey results.

On a scale of 1 to 100, with 80 being the benchmark for excellent, overall customer satisfaction with social media sites remained unchanged from last year, pulling a score of 70. As a whole, social media ranks low, with just three categories — airlines, cable television and print newspapers, ranking lower.

ForeSee Results’ Larry Freed pointed out that by sheer numbers, Facebook is still the undisputed social network of choice for most, as figures this year increased slightly over the previous year. Still, the unimpressive score means there are opportunities for other services to gain.

“Facebook is clearly king right now, but if anyone can knock it off its throne, it would be Google,” said Freed.

These results may play well into the hands of Facebook’s emerging rival in the social networking biz, Google+. If the search giant can tap into the apparent customer dissatisfaction with Facebook, the company may be able to fortify its fledgling social network, which it launched by invitation only earlier this month and that currently supports about 10 million current customers.

ForeSee’s survey categorized Google under search engines and portals, rather than social media, because its social network wasn’t established in time to be considered for this year’s survey. As a search engine, Google led its category with a score of 83.

Wikipedia topped the competition in social media sites with a score of 78, followed by YouTube’s 74 score.

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