Facebook experiment illustrates need for online users' bill of rights

[Commentary] Creepy doesn't begin to describe Facebook's 2012 psychological experiment on 700,000 of its unwitting users. Any attempt to manipulate the emotional state of consumers is unconscionable. It reflects poorly on the entire tech community, confirming privacy activists' worst fears. This public relations disaster, coming on the heels of the National Security Agency spying revelations, reasserts the pressing need for Silicon Valley to produce an online users' bill of rights. The alternative is an inevitable downward spiral of confidence in tech companies and their products. Could government regulation be far behind? The European Union is ahead of the United States in protecting personal information. Brazil passed an Internet bill of rights in April limiting the data that online companies can collect from users. Silicon Valley should take the initiative to offer Americans the same protections. If it doesn't, the industry's reputation will continue to unravel. And companies won't be able to blame NSA snoops for it.