Myspace, once the most popular social media network until Facebook, settled a privacy investigation by the Federal Trade Commission Tuesday and agreed to submit to privacy audits for the next 20 years.

The situation began when Myspace was charged with misrepresenting its privacy policies to users. Despite stating it would not share personally identifiable information with others, Myspace gave advertisers users’ “Friend ID” numbers, allowing advertisers to find users’ publicly available personal information – often including full names and sometimes leading to the discovery of users’ browsing activity.

The settlement is similar to deals the FTC struck with Facebook and Google (News - Alert) in the past. Myspace has essentially agreed not to misrepresent its privacy policies any further, while also agreeing to implement a comprehensive privacy program. The social media site will also submit to regular, independent privacy assessments over the time period.

Specific Media, based in Irvine, California, is an online ad network operator and the current owner of Myspace, having purchased it from former owner News Corp (News - Alert). for $35 million last year. In a statement, Specific Media said it hopes to "put any questions regarding Myspace's pre-acquisition advertising practices behind us."

The company also claimed it had conducted a thorough review of Myspace’s advertising practices and privacy policies following the acquisition and had "successfully improved upon Myspace's historical practices, bringing the social media platform to the forefront of industry best practice for ad delivery."

In March 2011, the FTC (News - Alert) settled with Google over similar charges when the search giant launched a social networking service called Buzz. The settlement requires Google to obtain user consent before sharing consumer information if the company alters a service to use data in a way that would violate its existing privacy policy.

Similarly this past November, the FTC settled with Facebook, making the company receive explicit approval from users before changing their privacy policy – a process called “opting in.”

In both cases, just with the Myspace settlement, both companies agreed to independent privacy audits for 20 years.