A Comment on James Grimmelmann’s Saving Facebook

Abstract

This paper comments on Professor James Grimmelmann’s article Saving Facebook. It provides a useful analysis of the privacy debates surrounding this social networking web site. Grimmelmann provides valuable sociological and psychological material for future legislators to draw on in considering legislative control of Facebook and similar sites. Grimmelmann uses Facebook to provide concrete examples of privacy concerns to build on the more general framework provided by the works of Daniel Solove. The comment does take exception to Grimmelmann’s analysis in several points. Chief among these is Grimmelmann’s lack of evidence in support of his argument concerning the ineffectiveness of market approaches as a factor in insuring privacy protection.

Keywords: Facebook, social networking, privacy