"The notice has been seriously inadequate. As far as I can tell, only members of Site Governance and Facebook and Privacy pages were notified, and the vote is only open for a week," Jacobs said. "The procedure seems to be flawed, unless the goal is to have a vote that doesn't really mean much."

Both European and American privacy groups are advising users to vote against Facebook's proposed changes. Schrems said the changes don't do enough to address the potential illegalities flagged by the Irish data protection commissioner. He took a recent ZDNet as evidence that the commissioner's office will demand changes from Facebook even if users approve the new policy.

Gary Davis, deputy commissioner of the Irish data protection office, said in an email that the office was "satisfied with the version presented," but added, "the privacy policy is only one step in the consenting and engagement process with users, and it is recognized that a move towards the seeking of what we would term 'in-line' consent represents a better approach as it seeks a consent from a user for the use of their data at a time when it is relevant."

Schrems' group sees the vote as a way for users to communicate to Facebook that they want more privacy protections.

EPIC's Jacobs said users should vote against the new policies. Voter approval could just entrench practices that don't really safeguard user privacy, because the new policies are more explicit without offering more protection, he said. That would make them harder to fight. According to Jacobs and other privacy advocates, American laws mainly restrict companies from diverging from what they tell users about their practices with personal data.