Senator Wants FTC to Look Into Facebook Mood Experiment

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether Facebook’s experiment on the ability to manipulate emotions on Facebook using the data of 700,000 unwitting users may have violated the company’s privacy agreement with the federal government. “As the collection and analysis of ‘big data’ continues to increase and as it assumes a larger role in the business plans of Internet-based companies, it is appropriate that we consider questions about what, if any, oversight might be appropriate,” Warner said in a letter to the FTC.