Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, 2nd Edition

Privacy settings

by Ashley Baker

Identification: Means by which users of a website or application manipulate and control the amount and type of personal information about them that is collected and disseminated. Forms of privacy settings range from the ability to control what other users see to what information might be passed on to third parties for targeted advertising or other purposes by the company providing the service.

Privacy settings have become essential in the digital world. An option to enable standard privacy settings or the ability to manipulate and personalize privacy settings is available on almost every form of digital platform—from operating systems to applications and websites. Google, Facebook, and even web browsers include options to determine what data users reveal to third parties—to an extent—during their time online.

Privacy settings became important as a way to implement the fair information practice principles (FIPPs) drafted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in May 2000. No company is legally required to have privacy settings that consumers can manipulate or to have privacy settings at all, but companies are required to comply with the principles. Nearly ten years after FIPPs were created, websites began to experiment with more substantial and customizable privacy settings.

Currently, in the digital world, most websites and software provide privacy policies that detail whether a user has the ability to manipulate his or her privacy settings. The most significant and often cited example of privacy policies online is Facebook’s policy. Many Facebook users know that the website allows users to manipulate privacy settings to a certain degree. Users may decide with whom to share their posts and information—from a small group of friends to the general public. Because it is so simple to disseminate information online, privacy settings are essential to the preservation of an individual’s personal information and online image, which may affect his or her personal and professional life, especially on a site as widely used as Facebook. Privacy settings have been controversial, however, since their inception because the existence of privacy settings does not mean that the settings are actually followed or enforced.

The issue of privacy settings is a largely unregulated area. No government agency is authorized to govern all the areas of cyberspace. In online services such as Google and Facebook, the FTC has the ability only to enforce the privacy settings, which companies disclose to consumers, to alleviate consumer fraud. In some controversial cases, the FTC may enter into legal agreements with companies to preserve consumer privacy and security. Google currently has an agreement with the FTC stating that the company will honor user privacy settings and not circumvent them. Specifically, the FTC ordered Google “not [to] misrepresent in any manner, expressly or by implication . . . the extent to which consumers may exercise control over the collection, use or disclosure of covered information.” Although the FTC seems to exert control over one of the world’s most significant online companies through this 2011 order, this contract demonstrates the current limit of the FTC’s power. The FTC can only ensure that Google and other corporations do not engage in consumer fraud. Beyond this, the FTC is powerless to control how these massive online corporations handle private consumer data.

Privacy settings are also controversial because consumers face many challenges even when privacy settings are in place. First, consumers often ignore privacy settings or do not have the technical skills that may be necessary to take advantage of the available protections. Under current law, privacy settings tend to be opt-in rather than opt-out provisions, which means that, unless requested, users’ privacy settings will be off or set to the least restrictive settings. To protect privacy rights, consumers must be proactive and search for additional protection. Each update to a company’s privacy policy may result in an individual’s personal privacy settings are no longer as active or as restrictive as the user requested prior to the policy change.

Despite the controversy over privacy settings, only one bill is currently pending in Congress that will affect privacy settings. The bill, known as the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2015 (H.R. 2734, 2015), is not the first bill to attempt to regulate privacy settings. In fact, a broader bill, Do Not Track Me Online Act of 2011 (H.R. 654, 2011), was originally introduced in 2011. This previous bill would have required the FTC to “establish standards for the required use of an online opt-out mechanism,” which would have been placed within an application or website’s privacy settings. This bill did not gain sufficient support in 2011 but was reintroduced in 2015 with a focus on children. The pending bill requires companies to gain verifiable consent from parents before the companies are able to track any of the information within the application regarding children. The parents, via privacy settings, would be able to control exactly what information about their children is collected and how companies may then use the information. However, the Do Not Track Kids Act of 2015 was not enacted, so privacy settings continue to be a largely unregulated area with the potential danger to privacy rights that this entails.

Many of the most ubiquitous web presences in modern society including Facebook, Apple, and Google, continue to have a contentious relationship with users who want their data, browsing habits, and purchasing habits kept private. Turning off location services may prevent some parts of the companies’ services from working but can keep people’s private information more secure. Apps that use augmented reality or virtual reality rely on location services as well. Many apps, such as Facebook, track users’ movements whether or not the app itself is open unless users change their privacy settings to prevent it.

Currently, privacy settings remain a legally murky area. The FTC has little power to regulate the way in which privacy settings are presented or enforced. Consumers must trust that online companies provide users with options to safeguard their privacy while still being able to apprise themselves of the benefits of the various services. As the digital landscape has evolved, privacy settings began and continue to be a point of contention among consumers, government administrations, and online corporations.

Further Reading

1 

Datta, Anwitaman, et al. Social Informatics: Third International Conference, SocInfo, 2011, Singapore, October 2011. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2011.

2 

Trepte, Sabine, and Leonard Reinecke. Privacy Online: Perspectives on Privacy and Self-Disclosure in the Social Web. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2011.

3 

“Windows 10 privacy settings: How to stop Microsoft from spying on you.” The Star. February 16, 2019.

4 

Zetlin, Minda. “Want to Make Facebook Stop Tracking Your Location When Not in Use? Here’s How.” Inc. February 22, 2019.

See also: Do-not-track legislation; Facebook; Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs); Federal Trade Commission (FTC); Google

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Baker, Ashley. "Privacy Settings." Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, 2nd Edition, edited by Jane E. Kirtley & Michael Shally-Jensen, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=PRDA2e_0183.
APA 7th
Baker, A. (2019). Privacy settings. In J. E. Kirtley & M. Shally-Jensen (Eds.), Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Baker, Ashley. "Privacy Settings." Edited by Jane E. Kirtley & Michael Shally-Jensen. Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2026. online.salempress.com.