Consumer Confidential: Thanks, Facebook! Your totally crappy year may be a boon for consumer privacy
This coming year may finally mark a turning point in protecting people's privacy, and you have Facebook to thank for that.
Not because the social media giant is leading the way to much-needed safeguards.
Rather, because the company, after repeated security lapses and scandals, has utterly failed in its self-declared mission of doing right by users - and lawmakers at last are signaling a willingness to act.
"Facebook's conduct and the response to it this year provided a stark example of a deep disconnect," said Andrea Matwyshyn, co-director of Northeastern University's Center for Law, Innovation and Creativity.
She told me data-heavy companies such as Facebook see themselves as little more than neutral aggregators of information with limited responsibility for
