I think we'll have to read between the lines, so I'll insert those lines in BLUE font. (Think of it as what he might have typed out to to clarify everything)
We've basically reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission on privacy. We've agreed to pay a historic fine, but even more important, we're going to make some major structural changes to how we build products and run this company.
'Historic' relative to the FTC imposing this fine, which is in fact a trivial amount for us.
We have a responsibility to protect people's privacy. We already work hard to live up to this responsibility, but now we're going to set a completely new standard for our industry.
I know I could have used a .GIF image to portray me winking, but I deliberately avoided that to show everyone that we value privacy. (Well, mine, at least)
As part of this settlement, we're bringing our privacy controls more in line with our financial controls under the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. Our executives, including me, will have to certify that all of the work we exceed meets our privacy commitments. Just as we have an audit committee of our board to exceed our financial controls, we'll set up a new privacy committee of our board that will exceed our privacy program. We've also asked one of our most experienced product leaders to take on the role of Chief Privacy Officer for Products.
Most of this is a formality. Rather than change the way we operate, we strive to change the way people see it.
To implement this, we'll have to review our technical systems to document any privacy risks and how we're handling them. Going forward, when we ship a new feature that uses data, or modify an existing feature to use data in new ways, we'll have to document any risks and the steps we're taking to mitigate them. We expect it will take hundreds of engineers and more than a thousand people across our company to do this important work. And we expect it will take longer to build new products following this process going forward.
It took me a very long time to type all of this out, so I hope our commitment is clear.
Overall, these changes go beyond anything required under US law today. The reason I support them is that I believe they will reduce the number of mistakes we make and help us deliver stronger privacy protections for everyone.
Well, the real reason is that I wanted to get it over with --- honestly, this was just dragging on and becoming a pain.
As we build our privacy-focused vision for the future of social networking that I outlined earlier this year, it's critical we get this right. The next focus for our company is to build privacy protections as strong as the best services we provide. I'm committed to doing this well and delivering the best private social platform for our community.
We value your strong support, and hope all users / readers will do their best to imagine me winking.
Shannon D'Cruz,
CISM, CISSP
www.linkedin.com/in/shannondcruz
